BuzzFeed: "Broadchurch: Olivia Colman Is Britain’s 'Finest Export'"

The BAFTA-winning actress stars opposite David Tennant in BBC America’s spellbinding murder mystery Broadchurch. She talks about jumping from comedy to drama, Peep Show, working with David Tennant and Matt Smith, and more.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Broadchurch: Olivia Colman Is Britain’s 'Finest Export,'" in which I interview the incomparable Olivia Colman, who stars in the sensational British murder mystery Broadchurch — which heads Stateside to BBC America on Wednesday evening — about Peep Show, David Tennant, ricocheting between comedy and drama, and more.

Olivia Colman is late to our interview.

A nervous publicist explains that the star of Broadchurch, which plunged the U.K. into a full-blown obsession when it aired earlier this year, is making her way on foot to our location, deep within the caverns of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. (Colman is slated to appear to next day on a panel for BBC America at the Television Critics Association summer press tour.) When Colman does turn up, she’s barefoot, clutching a pair of wickedly high-heeled Louboutins in her arms and apologizing for her tardiness.
Apparently, the BAFTA winner — who stars opposite David Tennant in BBC America’s murder mystery Broadchurch, which begins Wednesday, August 7 (it aired earlier this year to huge ratings on ITV in the U.K.), and can be seen in everything from Tyrannosaur to Peep Show — can do comedy and drama well, but finds walking in heels a real challenge. (It may be her rare flaw, in fact.) Hugs, however, are something she excels at. Colman and Doctor Who star Matt Smith embrace briefly as she passes by him, shoes in tow; she appeared in Smith’s very first Doctor Who episode (“The Eleventh Hour”).

“She’s amazing,” Smith tells me. “She’s great fun. Especially when you go and have a beer with her. She’s a riot.” And no one, I say, can cry like her. “Yeah, no one! And as a comedy actress as well, she’s incredible. She’s one of our finest exports.”

Colman is, in fact, a cottage industry unto herself, turning out highly nuanced performances from both ends of the comedy/drama divide. The Telegraph called her “the next Judi Dench.” Meryl Streep referred to her as “divinely gifted.” But Colman doesn’t wear those accolades comfortably. Bring them up and she laughs uneasily.

“It all seems a bit silly, doesn’t it? I did rewind the Meryl bit quite a few times,” Colman says, shifting in her chair. “That was amazing. I don’t know. It’s lovely and I’m aware that I’m lucky and there are many, many people who can do what I do. I’ve just been given an opportunity to do it, and I’m very grateful. It might all dry up. I’m making hay.”

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BuzzFeed: "Peter Capaldi Named As The New Star Of Doctor Who"

Yep, it's true. After much speculation, BBC has finally named Number Twelve. Peter Capaldi will take over as as the Doctor from Matt Smith, who will depart the role in this year’s Christmas Special.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest post, "Peter Capaldi Named As The New Star Of Doctor Who," about the casting of Peter Capaldi as Number Twelve.

The TARDIS is getting a new inhabitant in the form of 55-year-old veteran actor Peter Capaldi.
After weeks of speculation (and much interest from London bookies), BBC finally announced on Sunday just who will be taking over as the Time Lord at the center of long-running British science fiction drama Doctor Who once current series star Matt Smith leaves in December’s Christmas Special.

“The decision is made and the time has come to reveal who’s taking over the TARDIS,” executive producer and head writer Steven Moffat had teased ahead of the broadcast. “For the last of the Time Lords, the clock is striking twelve.”
The news of Capaldi being cast as the Doctor was announced on a live BBC One special, Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor, which lifted the shroud of secrecy surrounding the highly anticipated casting news. The live special featured live and pre-recorded appearances from Smith, Peter Davison (the Fifth Doctor), and Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor), as well as Bernard Cribbins and former companions Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Anneke Wills (Polly), Janet Fielding (Tegan), and Bonnie Langford (Mel). Asked for three words to describe the new Doctor, Moffat said, “Different from Matt.”

Capaldi is most definitely different to Smith — at least in age, as like Smith, he’s male and white. (For those hoping that the Doctor would regenerate into a woman, you’ll have to wait. It won’t be happening on Moffat’s watch, as he oddly made a joke about it not happening anytime soon.)

Capaldi walked out on stage (during what appeared to be a Time Tunnel-like laser light show) to much fanfare from the audience. “It’s so wonderful to not keep this secret any longer, but it has been absolutely fantastic in its own way,” said Capaldi. “So many wonderful things have happened. For a long time, I couldn’t tell my daughter, who would be looking on the internet and seeing that so-so should be Doctor Who and so-so should be Doctor Who and they never mentioned me.”

As for preparing for the role, Capaldi said that it was a bit of a challenge, though he has been a huge fan of the Time Lord for most of his life.

“It was quite hard because, even though I’m a lifelong Doctor Who fan, I haven’t played the Doctor since I was nine on the playground,” joked Capaldi, who said that he missed the call from his agent with the news of his casting (he was filming BBC’s Three Musketeers in Prague). “She rang me up and said, ‘Hello, Doctor!’ and I just started laughing and I’ve been laughing ever since.”

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BuzzFeed: "The Doctor Is In: Matt Smith On Leaving Doctor Who, A Female Doctor, And More"

The 30-year-old actor will depart cult British sci-fi drama Doctor Who after this year’s Christmas Special. Here's what he told BuzzFeed about his decision to leave, the possibility of a female Doctor, stealing socks, and more.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest story, "The Doctor Is In: Matt Smith On Leaving Doctor Who, A Female Doctor, And More," in which I sit down with Doctor Who star Matt Smith to discuss his decision to leave the British science fiction drama, the possibility of a female Doctor, and what's next for him.

Matt Smith is wearing bright turquoise socks. The 30-year-old star of Doctor Who is lolling around on a leather couch deep within the cavernous confines of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, a day before he’s set to appear on a panel celebrating the 50th anniversary of the British science fiction drama at the Television Critics Association summer press tour.

When I draw attention to his socks (they coincidentally match the shirt I’m wearing), Smith proudly draws up his trouser leg to take a closer look. “They’re a similar color to your shirt!” he says, enthusiastically in a fashion not unlike the Doctor himself. “I always steal a pair of socks on every photo shoot I do.” He pauses. “It’s my thing.”

Smith looks drastically different from his on-screen persona as the Doctor, having transformed himself to play a tough guy in Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, How to Catch a Monster, which will be Smith’s first appearance after he wraps up his tenure on Doctor Who later this year. There’s the 50th anniversary special airing November 23rd (on BBC One in the U.K. and BBC America in the U.S.) and then the Christmas Special, where the Doctor will regenerate into… Well, who knows who he’ll become yet? Neither Smith nor executive producer Steven Moffat are giving us any clues about which actor (or actress?) might step into the role and play Number Twelve. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation between Smith and BuzzFeed.

How liberating is it to leave behind that Doctor Who coif and the bowties?

MS: I’ve got to be honest, it is quite liberating. Although I’m putting Miracle-Gro on it because I need to get it back for September to go and shoot the regeneration [scene]. But it is freeing, shaving it off. Walking round at Comic-Con, people didn’t recognize me as much. Just generally, people recognize me much less, and that’s quite nice as well, because you can be more anonymous.

It helps when you’re walking around Comic-Con wearing a Bart Simpson mask. Was that surreal, walking around surrounded by some of your biggest fans?

MS: I went up to the BBC America booth and I tried to talk to people, but I put on an American accent. I was like, “Hey, how’s it going, man? I like your TARDIS thing,” and whatever and no one wanted to talk to me! There was one girl in particular who had a backpack on with Tom Baker-y straps like a scarf. And I was really trying to talk to her and she was just not interested.

At what point did you know that it was time to move on from Doctor Who?

MS: It’s something that I was considering for a while. It’s one of those jobs where there’s never a right time, because part of you just wants to do it forever. It’s such wonderful storytelling and it’s the most wonderful character and it’s the most wonderful cast and crew, and so much about it is right. I think you have to keep challenging yourself and keep challenging the show. For the show, it’s the right time and it will re-galvanize it. The show will get bigger and better, and I’ll become a fan and look back on my time and just go, “I’ve had the most wonderful journey.”
What was the conversation like that you had with Steven Moffat about your decision?
MS: To be honest with you, it’s, that’s something that I’d like to keep private, because it’s a private conversation and Steven is a dear friend of mine. It was something that we talked about a while ago as well, in rough terms. In my head I just knew that, after the 50th anniversary, I’d look at retiring the bow tie, as it were.

But Steven was supportive, I imagine.

MS: Yeah, yeah, he was. But obviously as well, it’s one of those things. It wasn’t easy for both of us because we’ve worked together for three years, and creatively and personally, we’re close. Part of me would have liked to have continued and finished the journey with him, but also, for me, I just felt like it was time for a change of lifestyle.

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The Daily Beast: "Emmy Awards’ Dark Horse Nominee: Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black"

If you didn’t watch BBC America’s clone drama Orphan Black, you missed one of the year’s best dramatic performances. My take on why Tatiana Maslany deserves an Emmy nod.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Emmy Awards’ Dark Horse Nominee," in which I offer a look at one of the year's best television performances, that of Tatiana Maslany on BBC America's Orphan Black, and state why this dark horse deserves at least an Emmy nomination.

If you don’t regularly tune in to shows about global conspiracies, illegal medical research, and genetically identical clones, you may be forgiven for not watching Orphan Black, the serpentine Canadian-American science fiction drama that wrapped up its first season earlier this month on BBC America. (Season 2 will air in 2014.)

But not watching this compelling and surprisingly emotional cult drama—created by Graeme Manson and John Fawcett—means that you missed out on one of the year’s most intense and astonishing television performances. In Orphan Black, Tatiana Maslany delivers a daredevil turn, playing no less than seven different roles, each one with their own mannerisms and secrets.

It’s no surprise that Maslany, a 27-year-old Canadian actress, has already been racking up accolades for her electrifying acting. On Monday, she was awarded the Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series and, on the same day, nominated for a Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Drama. While roughly two weeks remain before Emmy nomination ballots are due back from voting members, Maslany is already receiving buzz as a dark horse contender for a Best Actress spot. And with good reason, as Maslany’s versatile performance in Orphan Black would be a staggering feat for a veteran actor, much less for one recently starting out.

Maslany plays Sarah Manning, a sharp-tongued British grifter who sees an escape from her problems when a woman—one who looks identical to her—jumps in front of a moving subway train. Desperate to escape her abusive drug dealer boyfriend Vic (Michael Mando) and reclaim her young daughter, Sarah assumes the identity of her lookalike, slipping into her life in order to start a new one. But the dead woman—Beth Childs—is a cop under investigation for the shooting death of a civilian, and by assuming her identity, Sarah is drawn into a conspiracy that reveals her own true nature: that she and Beth are clones, closely monitored by their creators, and that someone is trying to kill them off. (The result is something akin to Ringer crossed with Krzysztof Kieslowski’s La double vie de Véronique with some Alias thrown in for good measure.)

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The Daily Beast: "Broadchurch: This British Murder Mystery Will Be Your Next Television Obsession"

British murder mystery Broadchurch, heading to the U.S. later this year on BBC America, is a worthy successor to Forbrydelsen. My take on ITV’s tantalizing thriller, which wraps up tonight in the U.K.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Broadchurch: This British Murder Mystery Will Be Your Next Television Obsession," in which I review ITV's sensational murder mystery Broadchurch, which stars David Tennant and Olivia Colman and which will head Stateside later this year on BBC America. Not to be missed!

The British have an insatiable appetite for crime fiction, whether it appears in print or on television screens. Putting aside the twee tea cozy mysteries of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, however, these thrillers are not only taut but also bleak depictions of the psychological fallout from murder: tracing, as novelist Ruth Rendell has done so well in her work, how crime affects not just the victim, but also those left behind. Murder doesn’t just destroy a single life; it corrupts everyone with which it comes in contact.

ITV’s superlative murder mystery Broadchurch, which wraps up its eight-episode run tonight in the U.K. (it heads Stateside later this year on BBC America), explores just that, a gorgeously realized and emotive thriller that revolves around the murder of an 11-year-old boy, Danny Latimer (Oskar McNamara), in a seaside town on the Dorset coast, and the investigation by the police and the media to unmask his killer.

Created by Chris Chibnall, Broadchurch is, in many ways, a homegrown response to the riveting Nordic Noir television trend, which has captured the imagination of U.K. viewers in a very unexpected and palpable way. Like Forbrydelsen before it, Broadchurch focuses on both the police investigation—embodied here by churlish Detective Inspector Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and eager-to-be-liked Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman)—and how Danny’s family copes in the wake of such monumental grief. ITV’s Broadchurch—which was deemed “another jewel in the channel’s drama crown” by The Independent—has proven to be a huge success in its native Britain, luring in roughly 9 million consolidated viewers, putting it on par with the massively successful Downton Abbey.

Everyone is a suspect in Danny’s death, from the cheerful local vicar (Doctor Who’s Arthur Darvill) and the grizzled newsagent (David Bradley) to Danny’s own father, Mark (Andrew Buchan). Secrets have a way of spilling out in a murder investigation, and Broadchurch does a fantastic job of charting the numerous atomic explosions that follow in its wake. Everyone in the idyllic seaside town has something to conceal, something they’re running from, a terrible past that they’re looking to forget. Even Danny, the poor dead boy at the center of the story, seems to have harbored some terrible secret, one worth killing him over. Just what that is—and whodunit—remains the overarching plot that carries an electric current throughout the action.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

The Daily Beast: "Five Facts About the New Doctor Who Companion, Jenna-Louise Coleman"

Her two previous Doctor Who characters all look alike... and they've all died. Jace Lacob rounds up five facts about new Doctor Who companion Jenna-Louise Coleman.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Five Facts About the New Doctor Who Companion, Jenna-Louise Coleman," in which I round up five facts about the new Doctor Who companion, Jenna-Louise Coleman, who joins Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor when the show returns to BBC America and BBC One on March 30.

Clara... who?

The Doctor—the centuries old time-traveler whose 11th incarnation is played by Matt Smith—has had his fair share of companions over the last 50 years, but the Time Lord is about to get yet another in the form of 26-year-old British actress Jenna-Louise Coleman, who steps into the TARDIS officially when Doctor Who's seventh season returns for its back half on March 30.

Coleman has turned up on Doctor Who twice already in the past year, playing very different characters with the same appearance and a similar name. There she is in "Asylum of the Daleks" as Oswin Oswald, the starship Alaska's junior entertainment manager whose soul is trapped in the body of a souffle-loving killing machine. There she is again as Clara Oswin Oswald in 2012's Christmas Special, "The Snowmen," playing a 19th century governess who gets caught up in one of the Doctor's plots. (It involves killer snow, memories, Richard E. Grant, and the disembodied voice of Sir Ian McKellen. Don't ask.)

Coleman's characters have a tendency to die, but the last sighting of Coleman—wandering around the graveyard where her 19th century doppelganger is bured in the 21st century—points towards an undeniable truth: they are all, somehow, the same woman, echoing across time and space.

Coleman is no stranger to television, even if American audiences aren't that familiar with the actress, who has appeared in ITV/ABC's Titanic miniseries (written by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes), Captain America: The First Avenger, and Stephen Poliakoff's Jazz Age period drama Dancing on the Edge. But for those who want to know more about the actress who is taking over as the Doctor's official companion, a role last played Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill's Amy and Rory, below are five facts about Jenna-Louise Coleman.

1. One of her first television roles was on the long-running British soap Emmerdale, where she played Jasmine, one half of the show's "groundbreakingly ‘normal’ lesbian couple," alternately a troubled student, barmaid, and journalist. And a murderer, as it turns out. The character was written off the show when Jasmine was sent to prison for manslaughter after she bludgeoned her would-be rapist to death with a chair leg and then dumped the body in a lake. "As a first job I'm grateful for it," she told The Guardian earlier this year. "Though by the end I was quite restless. It was a brilliant experience. But I was ready to leave when I did."

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The Daily Beast: "Ben Whishaw, The Hour's British Invader"

Q in Skyfall goes back in time to the 1950s newsroom in Season Two of The Hour, beginning tonight. I explore the range and appeal of talented British actor Ben Whishaw.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "The Hour's British Invader," in which I write about the astonishing range of 32-year-old British actor Ben Whishaw, who held his own against Bond as Q in Skyfall and returns to television tonight with Season Two of BBC America's The Hour.

You know Ben Whishaw.

Or rather, you should know precisely who the British actor is, even if he isn’t yet a household name. You may have seen him as doomed poet John Keats in 2009’s Bright Star or as doomed playboy Sebastian Flyte in the remake of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. In this autumn’s Cloud Atlas, he plays five distinct roles, from a classical composer and a record-store clerk to a cabin boy and even a woman. And you definitely saw him in the most recent James Bond flick, Skyfall, in which he plays Q, the youthful quartermaster for Daniel Craig’s aging 007.

Bespectacled and dressed in a cardigan and cravat, the whisper-thin Whishaw epitomizes the casual arrogance and dubious irony of the very young; he’s the brains to Bond’s rough-hewn brawn. Their meeting is a collision of the old and the new, technology versus humanity. Whishaw and Craig share several scenes together, but the most telling is perhaps that set in the National Gallery. As Q and Bond stare at a painting of an old frigate being dragged out to sea, Q tells the supersuave superspy, “I can do more damage on my laptop, sitting in my pajamas, before my first cup of Earl Grey tea, than you can do in a year in the field.”

It’s no surprise that the quote became embraced immediately on Tumblr, where Whishaw has quite a fan presence. In fact, it’s hard to swing a techie’s radio transmitter without hitting a comic strip of Whishaw’s Q or numerous fan pages devoted to the 32-year-old actor whose roles demonstrate not only versatility and raw sentiment—he’s a tousle-haired poster boy for emo actors everywhere—but also a penchant for playing impassioned, ill-fated characters.

Whishaw reprises his role as crusading journalist Freddie Lyon in Season 2 of British period drama The Hour, which launches stateside tonight on BBC America. The first season of the critically beloved drama from creator Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady) found Freddie enmeshed in a love triangle with ambitious producer Bel Rowley (Romola Garai) and debonair news anchor Hector Madden (Dominic West) as they set out to create an evening news program in ’50s London.

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The Daily Beast: "Alex Kingston's Journey Through Time"

Alex Kingston reprises her role as River Song in Saturday’s Doctor Who and travels back in time for the new season of Upstairs Downstairs. I talk to the former ER star about River, Downton Abbey, historical lesbians, and more.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Alex Kingston's Journey Through Time," in which I talk to Kingston about Doctor Who and "The Angels Take Manhattan," Upstairs Downstairs (which returns to PBS' Masterpiece on Oct. 7), Downton Abbey, River Song, historical lesbians, and more.

Upstairs Downstairs isn’t typically known for its salaciousness.

The costume drama’s legendary original run—between 1971 and 1975 on ITV—kept the characters’ sexuality more or less off-screen, but the recent BBC revival series, which returns to PBS’ Masterpiece on Oct. 7, has taken a more overt approach to human sexuality than its predecessor, with one character—Claire Foy’s Lady Persephone—painted as a notorious Nazi sympathizer and professional party girl who hops into bed with just about anyone.

Season 2 of Upstairs Downstairs introduces a lesbian to the staid 165 Eaton Place of 1936 in the form of Alex Kingston’s Dr. Blanche Mottershead, an archaeologist and resolutely modern woman whose romantic past is tinged with bittersweet loss. When her former lover, Lady Portia Alresford (Emilia Fox), now married with children, writes a steamy roman a clef about their time together, Kingston’s Blanche is exposed and 165 Eaton Place is once again plunged into scandal.

“She will shake up the equilibrium in the house a little bit,” Kingston told The Daily Beast. “And by the end of the series, she has done just that.”

For Kingston—who starred on medical drama ER for seven years and who reprises her recurring role on Doctor Who this Saturday—it was Blanche’s sexuality that lured her to the project.

“That more than anything hooked me because I thought it would be quite interesting to play,” said Kingston, 49. “In a curious way, it was almost easier for women to be physical with other women then, because men and society didn’t take it seriously ... It was thought of as a little dalliance that didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t exactly a threat to the patriarchy and to the world that men had created ... or as much as a societal threat that it became later, actually.”

The series doesn’t shy away from depicting the romance between the two women, showing them embracing and in bed together, as well as in several sexually charged scenes. (It led the Daily Mail to write, as a headline, “Pass the smelling salts, Hudson! The lesbian bedroom scenes that would NEVER have appeared in the original Upstairs Downstairs.”) Kingston’s Blanche is positioned as a whiskey-drinking free thinker whose career choice—looking at the relics of the past—is juxtaposed with her view toward the future. It’s no accident that she appears in the series just as the world teeters on the brink of World War II.

“The Second World War radically changed how society live, what family meant, and what women’s roles were,” Kingston said. “Blanche is right on the cusp of all of that. She had created a career for herself, as an archaeologist sought out by the British Museum for her expertise ... in comparison to Lady Agnes [Keeley Hawes], who really didn’t know who she was or what her function was, other than looking rather beautiful in the house and producing babies for her husband. Blanche is not prepared to be that woman.”

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The Daily Beast: "TV's New Prostitute Fixation"

When Mad Men's Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) received her indecent proposal this season on the AMC period drama, viewers were sharply divided about her actions within the controversial and polarizing episode. But Hendricks' Harris is emblematic of a larger trend within television this year: the virtual proliferation of prostitutes within scripted dramas.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "TV's New Prostitute Fixation," in which I examine the sudden proliferation of prostitutes on television, from Game of Thrones and Crimson Petal to True Blood and Copper, and what may be behind the trend.

On BBC America’s period drama Copper, which premiered on Sunday, the first person encountered by Kevin Corcoran, the 19th century New York City policeman played by Tom Weston-Jones, is a child prostitute who promptly offers to “pleasure” him in exchange for coin.

No more than 10 years old, Copper’s Annie (Kiara Glasco) acts as a conduit to a story arc about child killers, child prostitutes, and righteous vengeance. Within Copper, a whorehouse serves as one of the main backdrops for the Tom Fontana and Will Rokos-created drama, a sexually laced boozer where the cops come to unwind after a hard day chasing (and often killing) criminals. Franka Potente’s Eva oversees the establishment, counting money when she’s not indulging in some hot sex with Weston-Jones’ Corcoran. Across town, a French madam, Contessa Popadou (Inga Cadranel), rules her brothel with an iron fist sans velvet glove, indulging rich gentlemen’s tastes for young flesh.

Given that prostitution may be the world’s oldest profession, it’s no surprise that a show about the seedy underbelly of 19th century Manhattan’s Five Points would contain a whore or four, but the presence of prostitutes—which perhaps owes a debt to HBO’s Deadwood—isn’t limited to Copper. From True Blood and Game of Thrones to Justified, Hell on Wheels, and next month’s British import The Crimson Petal and the White, there’s a virtual proliferation of prostitutes on television right now, one that positions the women somewhere on the spectrum between victim and empowered hero. But while some of them represent financially attainable forbidden fruit (it is surely no coincidence that several recent TV hookers are named “Eva”), the omnipresence of these prostitutes underpins a disturbing development within real-life society.

That trend isn’t limited to literal whores either. In this season’s most controversial and polarizing episode of Mad Men, Christina Hendricks’ Joan Harris sold herself to a client in order to secure a seat at the table with the male partners. It’s within stories such as these that the viewer is given a glimpse into both the struggle of women to move beyond being objects of sexual desire, beautiful things to be owned, and the viewer fantasy of transformation that these situations engender.

There’s a distinct prurience to the appearance of the prostitute within a narrative. The shows mentioned above are all created by men (though it’s worth noting that The Crimson Petal and the White, based on the novel by Michael Faber, was adapted by Lucinda Coxon), so it’s hardly surprising that the male gaze would be turned on women whose job it is to service men sexually.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

More from Moffat: Outtakes From My Interview with Doctor Who Showrunner Steven Moffat

Yesterday, over at The Daily Beast, I ran my interview with Doctor Who head writer Steven Moffat, in which we discussed the shocking identity of River Song (Alex Kingston), criticisms of “bad girl” companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), the tenture of Moffat and series lead Matt Smith, and we dispelled quite a few (false) rumors about Season Seven along way.

Not everything from the time I spent with Moffat made it into that interview, so below you'll find some of the outtakes that were cut for length from The Daily Beast Q&A with Moffat.

Among the topics: whether we'll see Torchwood's Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) in the TARDIS anytime soon (and why River is, in some ways, a replacement for Jack), why Moffat seems to relish killing Rory (Arthur Darvill) over and over again, why Season Six was split into two halves for broadcast, how dark the second half of the season gets, and a brief discussion of Doctor Who's episodic budget.

The Daily Beast: What went into the decision to split the current sixth season into two halves?

Steven Moffat: We got in the heart of summer, and in the second half it tends to get slaughtered a bit. Not in the ratings, just aesthetically: you can hardly see your television set for the sunlight streaming onto it. Also, it just gives you another event. Our ratings went up for “A Good Man Goes to War,” it became an event episode, it got a Radio Times cover, it got a lot of fuss and attention paid to it. That would normally have been the mid-series dip, where we bottomed out and then started climbing a bit… And now we’re going to have another big launch for “Let’s Kill Hitler.” Why do it all at once? We make enough episodes to have two bites of the cherry, so why not do it?

The Daily Beast: How dark are these upcoming episodes?

Moffat: We’ve got quite a range. Tom MacRae’s is very dark, Toby [Whithouse]’s is very dark, Mark Gatiss’ is very dark. On the other hand, “Let’s Kill Hitler” is an absolute hoot. And the same time, it’s got to be moving as well. We’ve got six excellent episodes coming up and you run the full gamut from dark to hilarious and some of the maddest stuff we’ve ever done, and that’s Matt Smith, the comedy Doctor.

The Daily Beast: Any chance of a Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) appearance down the line?

Moffat: Not in these next episodes... People talk as if there’s a rule against it. There isn’t. It comes down to one thing: do we have a good story? He’s obviously a resource. Russell [T Davies] said there’s an extent to which River has taken his place: she’s the cheeky, flirtatious one, but I was the first person ever to write Jack. I love the character. If there was a good story, he would come in. We would have to say, why him and not River? But yeah.

The Daily Beast: She does inherit Jack’s leftover blaster gun, after all.

Moffat: That was in my head and that gun must have ended up in the TARDIS, logically. That must be what it is: she just found it in a trunk and stuck in in her [pocket] on some night, doing who knows what.

The Daily Beast: Do you relish killing Rory off time and time again?

Moffat: The truth is he’s only been killed once and that has pointed out the other times that that has happened. What actually happened was we had two consecutive stories where it happened and I couldn’t make the scene work in “Amy’s Choice,” so I brought that in order to make that work. The Doctor’s companions are always on the verge of death. But we do pay it off, having found ourselves in that situation that wasn’t planned, we do pay it off.

The Daily Beast: There is a sense of responsibility in dealing with the franchise. It is an iconic series, an iconic character—

Moffat: There’s no shame in saying that it’s a brand, that it’s a franchise. Brands and franchises employ a lot of people and bring joy to a lot of other people… Running it is a responsibility and a joy and a thrill and a learning curve bar none. There isn’t any other job that teaches you what you learn here. Doctor Who should be kept going forever just on the basis that every so often it will manufacture a fully-fledged showrunner and a fully-fledged star.

The Daily Beast: How much is a typical episodic budget?

Moffat: £1 million-something, which isn’t really much when you consider that we have extensive guest cast, standing sets that we barely use, and you can’t really go to Venus. I never really think about the numbers, but I know you’ve got three too many sets there. It’s an alien species, but if we have more than three of them in prosthetics, we’re screwed.

Doctor Who returns Saturday, August 27th for the second half of Season Six, kicking off with "Let's Kill Hitler," at 9 pm ET/PT on BBC America and at 7:10 pm GMT on BBC One.

The Daily Beast: "Doctor Who’s Global Takeover" (Interview with Steven Moffat)

Once a cult series, British sci-fi drama Doctor Who has become a global phenomenon, and new audiences are embracing the 900-year-old alien time traveler--now played by roughly 29-year-old Matt Smith--with alarming passion. (Witness the rock-star welcome Smith and co-star Karen Gillan got at July’s Comic-Con.) Doctor Who, under head writer Steven Moffat, who replaced Russell T. Davies last season, returns for the second half of its sixth season in the U.S. and the U.K. on Saturday.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Doctor Who’s Global Takeover," in which I sit down with Moffat in Los Angeles to discuss the shocking identity of River Song (Alex Kingston), criticisms of “bad girl” companion Amy Pond (Gillan), and rumors about next season.

Doctor Who returns Saturday, August 27th for the second half of Season Six, kicking off with "Let's Kill Hitler," at 9 pm ET/PT on BBC America and at 7:10 pm GMT on BBC One.

The Daily Beast: "The Hour: The British Mad Men?"

The British drama The Hour, launching on Wednesday, Aug. 17, on BBC America, arrives at an inauspicious time for British journalists currently mired in a phone-hacking scandal and charges of police bribery that has closed newspapers and brought media moguls in front of Parliament. Those involved with such illicit and illegal wiretapping bear little resemblance to the journalist-heroes of The Hour, set in and around a BBC newsroom in 1956, where the truth was the most important principle.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "The British Mad Men?" in which I sit down with The Hour's creator Abi Morgan to discuss the journalist-heroes of the six-part series, comparisons to AMC’s ‘Mad Men,’ and Morgan’s upcoming Margaret Thatcher biopic, The Iron Lady.

The Hour premieres tonight at 10 pm ET/PT on BBC America.

Stylish Love Triangles, Newsroom Politics, and Murder: An Advance Review of BBC America's Period Drama The Hour

"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." - Freddie Lyon

CBS' newsmagazine 60 Minutes represents something tangible and honest to most Americans: an hour of news and opinion that cuts through the news cycle clutter to offer insight and context about the issues of the day. In England, the show's analogue would have been something like Panorama or Tonight, but British journalists at the moment are widely tarnished by a phone hacking and police bribery grand scandal that has to date closed a newspaper, saw the departure of longtime Rupert Murdoch confidante Rebekah Brooks, and brought the media mogul himself before Parliament to answer for the grievous charges against the tabloid newspaper he owned.

In other words: it's not a good time to be a British journalist, with the world watching and waiting. In a quite prescient move, creator Abi Morgan's intoxicating and atmospheric British drama, The Hour, harkens back to the journalist-heroes of such films as All The Presidents' Men and Broadcast News. (It also reminds me, somewhat, of State of Play in some respects.) It's interesting to think back to a time when journalists-as-heroes was quite de rigueur. After all, we're meant to be truth-seekers, to shine a harsh light on corruption and wrong-doing, to punish the mendacious and expose injustice, tyranny, and falsehood. The pursuit of truth is the hero's prerequisite in way: a call to arms, a purpose of being. Who better then to embody that than the hard-working journalists of 1956, amid an era of paranoia and the end of the Empire?

(For my interview with Morgan about The Hour, click here.)

In The Hour, the troika of journalists at the center of Morgan's story--which artfully fuses together workplace romance, political potboiler, and noir-tinged espionage thriller--find themselves enmeshed in a love triangle that can't possibly end well. The Wire's Dominic West (yes, McNulty himself) plays Hector Madden, the face of the BBC's new (fictional) news program, The Hour, a highly polished and charming gentleman (in every sense of the word) who has made the right sort of bargains to end up in the position. His rival, Freddie Lyon (Brideshead Revisited's Ben Whishaw), is a middle-class hothead whose ambition is at odds with his iconoclastic nature. (He wants to be a part of the system while abhorring it.) His would-be paramour is the lovely Bel Rowley (Atonement's Romola Garai, here in pitch-perfect form), a career-driven woman in a man's world who seizes the opportunity to produce her own news show for the BBC, the "hour" of the title.

In the numerous comparisons between The Hour and Mad Men, Bel is typically compared to Elisabeth Moss' Peggy Olsen, but the two--apart from their intelligence, drive, and the desire to shatter the glass ceiling and define themselves outside of societal constructs of the period--aren't all that similar. Bel has a thing for married men, and seemingly for tormenting the lovelorn Freddie. The two exist in a semi-platonic state, Bel chafing against Freddie's insistence on calling her "Moneypenny" (she quickly becomes his boss on the show-within-a-show The Hour) though there are all sorts of mixed signals, even as Bel finds herself drawn to the unhappily married Hector in no uncertain terms.

In their own ways, they're all outsiders.

The Hour could have unfolded with a standard romantic arc, as Freddie pines for Bel, Bel is drawn to Hector, and Hector cheats on his cold wife Marnie, but that's not what The Hour is about. Set against the backdrop of 1956's Suez Canal Crisis, this is a super-charged political plot as well, one with clear parallels to our own times: violence and revolution in the Middle East, rising concerns about Communist powers, phone-tapping and surveillance, and overt paranoia and tension.

Just as the fictional Hour of the title seizes upon the crisis in Egypt to make a name for itself (and cast off the shackles of Parliament's barbaric 14-day policy of journalism silence) and take a stand on an issue, so too does The Hour itself, exploring class, nationalism, and identity through the prism of this historical event and the small moments that define a time period: a weekend visit to a country estate, a cup of tea in the canteen of the BBC's Lime Grove Studios, a tense walk through the Underground, a drunken night out.

The show is also, however, a spy thriller, one that recalls AMC's short-lived Rubicon with its double-crosses, encoded clues contained within newspapers, and shadowy operatives. But while Rubicon harkened back to 1970s thrillers like The Conversation, The Hour's espionage plot is a mix of 1950s B movies, Sir Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, and the noir of the previous decade. It's also, at times, a bit of pastiche, as seen from the terrible play within the show, "The Man Who Knew" an over the top bit of theatrics that both enhances and sends up the spy plot contained within The Hour.

For Freddie, the stakes are not only high here, but the espionage arc is also deeply personal, as he has a connection to several of the major players. As the bodies start piling up (two within the first episode, in fact), secrets slowly start easing their way from the shadows and into the light. Secrets that are both personal (Freddie's past) and political (Soviet agents?), in fact. Burn Gorman (Torchwood, Bleak House) is at his menacing best here, portraying the enigmatic Thomas Kish, a man with far too many secrets and a glinting knife's edge of anger.

The Hour takes its time with its espionage plot, laying out clues and hints throughout the first few episodes, keeping it on the backburner for now, though it threatens to explode at any moment. (Particularly, within the third episode.) Morgan deftly juggles multiple plots, tones, and styles within the first four hours (provided to press for preview), her characters springing to life with vivacity and wit.

Garai's performance is exhilarating, particularly seeing her go toe-to-toe with West; the screen crackles with intensity every time they look at one another. Whishaw is the show's moral center, a man determined to see the truth, no matter the personal cost; he's equally strong and frail at times, pining away for a woman who clearly doesn't love him, yet is empowered by the weight of his convictions. The supporting cast is equally as game: Anna Chancellor is fantastic as the hard-drinken Lix Storm; Anton Lesser provides gravitas as BBC executive Clarence Fendley; Julian Rhind-Tutt is appropriately oily as Eden's adviser Angus McCain; Oona Chaplin radiates haughty froideur as Hector's well-heeled wife Marnie; Lisa Greenwood's Sissy is adorably out of her depth; and Vanessa Kirby infuses socialite Ruth Elms with a brittle, damaged quality that's heartbreaking to behold.

Ultimately, The Hour is atmospheric television at its best, a deeply intelligent period drama that strives to present a time where the world was changing every single day in so many different ways, where lines were being crossed for the wrong reasons, and where a world-spanning empire had fallen and was seeing the last vestiges of its imperialism thrust back into its face. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...



The Hour premieres tonight at 10 pm ET/PT on BBC America.

The Daily Beast: "Summer 2011 TV Preview: 15 Reasons to Watch TV This Summer"

We’re starting our summer at a bit of a disadvantage: there is no new season of Mad Men to look forward to this year, as we’ll have to wait until March 2012 to find out what happens to Don Draper and the other staffers at Draper Cooper Sterling Pryce. It’s enough to put a damper on anyone’s television-viewing this summer, but there are still some bright points amid a series of repeats and burn-offs like NBC’s Love Bites. (Seriously, avoid that one like you would the plague.)

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, entitled "Summer 2011 TV Preview: 15 Reasons to Watch TV This Summer," in which I round up what’s new and noteworthy on the telly in the coming months, from True Blood and Torchwood: Miracle Day to British period drama The Hour and the return of Damages and Breaking Bad. All in all, 15 reasons to come in from the warmth of the summer evening and sit down on the couch for a few hours.

What are you most excited about heading to the small screen this summer? Which intrigues you the most? And which will make you change the channel instantly? Head to the comments section to share, discuss, and debate.

Cowboys and Aliens: An Advance Review of Season Six of Doctor Who

"I wear a Stetson now. Stetsons are cool."

Let's be upfront about one thing, shall we? While Doctor Who is often thought of as children's entertainment, the long-running and formidable science fiction program is anything but child-like. Yes, the show airs in a decidedly pre-watershed hour in the United Kingdom and, yes, the current Doctor, Matt Smith, has his face emblazoned on everything from sheets to trading cards, but under the aegis of head writer/executive producer Steven Moffat, Season Six of Doctor Who feels quite adult in the best possible sense.

If there's a word to describe the first two episodes of Season Six, which kicks off with an astonishing and taut two-parter ("The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon"), it's dark. If there was another, it would be trippy. This is Doctor Who at its mind-bending best, a mix of alien invasion intrigue, self-examination, and bizarro twists that unfurl themselves with insidious menace.

Moffat seems to relish the opportunity to push the already malleable boundaries of the venerable franchise, delivering a gripping plot that picks up several dangling plot threads from last season and from the ongoing subplot revolving around the mysterious identity of the even more enigmatic River Song (Alex Kingston), who Moffat introduced in his Season Four two-parter "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead." The true identity of Doctor Song lurks intriguingly underneath the surface of these two new installments, just out of reach of both the viewer and the Doctor himself.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Season Six picks up a few months after the whirlwind ending of Season Five, in which the Doctor's companions, plucky Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and vigilant Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) tied the knot. Here, we see them in post-honeymoon domestic bliss, though each yearns for adventure in their own way. Enter the Doctor, the Time Lord with the unerring sense of wanderlust, just the thing to snap them back out of their quotidian reality... and a summons that brings them all together again.

Smith is once more at his very best, delivering a portrayal of the Doctor that's nuanced and fluid, an embodiment of quicksilver. Kingston, well, sings as the provocative and close-lipped River Song, combining a gleeful exuberance with a tragic dimension: she and the Doctor are on opposite trajectories, meeting once more in the middle. (Whatever their relationship, it's utterly heartbreaking.) Gillan is carefree and down-to-earth yet ethereal at the same time; her Amy Pond is strong, funny, and sexy. And Darvill's Rory remains tantalizingly out of touch with reality: he's landed the girl of his dreams but can't let go of his jealousy over her friendship with the Time Lord. Together, our neat little quartet of time-tossed adventurers make for an engaging set of travelers, each carting their own hefty baggage.

Much of these first two episodes were shot on location in America and the production makes great use out of the splendor and vastness of the Utah desert, as the Doctor and his three companions investigate some mysterious goings on that are tied to the United States space program of 1969. One giant leap for mankind and all that. But the mystery they're exploring involves a terrifying masked astronaut whose arrival on the idyllic picnic scene the TARDIS crew have created turns to chaos, the much-whispered mystery of the Silence, River Song, numbered blue envelopes, creepy Oval Office telephone calls, President Richard Nixon (Jonathan Creek's Stuart Milligan), and more than a few space-time paradoxes. And, oh, did I mention the always great Mark Sheppard(Firefly) guest-stars as ex-FBI agent Canton Delaware? (He'll share the role with William Morgan Sheppard; both have their secrets.)

(As for the Silence, I can't say much about them/it, but I will say that the Weeping Angels, who first appear in Moffat's "Blink," have some competition for creepiest Who villains as the plot begins to unfold here. They made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. As for the astronaut of the title, you'll have to see it to believe it...)

While "The Impossible Astronaut" sets up the direction for the season and creates an engaging plot, it's the heartbreaking and sensational second episode, "Day of the Moon," which kicks the storyline into first gear, a somber and electrifying installment that is almost dream-like in its intensity, a nightmare borne from the mind of Moffat that infects each of us in turn, uncoiling its snake-like heads to bite us when we least expect it. The companions are pushed past their breaking point and the chase that follows is as gripping as it is jaw-dropping. (You'll see what I mean, but it all comes together, I promise.)

Moffat's Doctor Who has humor, heart, and horror in equal quantity and that's keenly felt here, as the stakes are raised immeasurably within the first few minutes of the season opener. While there's the sense of joy at seeing the Doctor, Amy, Rory, and River unite, there's also an elegiac quality as well; change is afoot for all of them and their companionship is interrupted by deep tension between the travelers. Secrets have a nasty way of driving a wedge between people and dark, dark secrets can threaten to shatter the circle of friendship here. That is, when they're not being pursued by the forces of Earth and beyond, encircled and defeated at their darkest hour yet.

These are terrific episodes of discovery, imprisonment, and flight, as the Doctor and his trusted companions learn several shocking truths about the planet and themselves, and we're left to pick up the pieces, to strive to understand just what is going on here, to unlock the puzzle that Moffat and Co. have created. The result is surreal and haunting, a mind-game of the highest order that remains tantalizingly unresolved at the end of the second episode. We're seeing Moffat launch his season-long arc from the start with this gripping two-parter and the questions that linger are intensely nerve-jangling.

In fact, one can imagine quite a few viewers needing a doctor of their own when all is said and done... Fez definitely not included.



Season Six of Doctor Who begins this Saturday evening on BBC America and BBC One.

New Doctor Who Trailer: "Have You Ever Looked in a Mirror?"

With the return of Doctor Who just a few weeks away now (three, if you're counting!), BBC America has released its first trailer for the new season, which sits comfortably beside the creepy one that Auntie Beeb released the other day.

Below, you can catch the BBC America trailer, which plays up the Utah desert and White House/Oval Office settings of the upcoming season, which finds the Doctor (Matt Smith), Amy (Karen Gillan), and Rory (Arthur Darvill) heading to the United States. (And, yes, elements were shot on location in Utah.)

This trailer plays up the cowboys, River Song ("hello, sweetie"), gunplay (both Western and futuristic), suspicious Secret Service agents, fast-plunging elevators, big explosions, Marc Shepherd, elegant skyscrapers, and, um, skeletons?



Season Six of Doctor Who premieres April 23rd on BBC America and BBC One.

New Doctor Who Trailer: "The Doctor's Darkest Hour"

"This is the day he finds out who I am..." - River Song

Auntie Beeb has released the first full trailer for Season Six of Doctor Who, starring Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, and the incomparable Alex Kingston, who plays River Song, the Doctor's... well, we'll be finding out this season.

Below, you can catch the full trailer, which looks absolutely bloody brilliant and features clowns, astronauts, a kiss from River Song, the Utah desert, explosions, pirate ships, Hugh Bonneville, puppets, peepholes, and who knows what else...



What do you think of the trailer? How excited are you for the return of The Doctor? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Season Six of Doctor Who premieres April 23rd on BBC One and BBC America.

VIDEO: Doctor Who Prequel: "There Are No Monsters in the Oval Office"

Season Six of Doctor Who might not kick off until next month, but Auntie Beeb is offering a sneak peek at the first episode ("The Impossible Astronaut"), written by head writer/executive producer Steven Moffat, with the first of three prequel clips heading your way in the next few weeks.

You can view the first prequel clip below, which depicts U.S. President Richard Nixon receiving a rather eerie phone call while he's seated in the White House's Oval Office, a message that urges him to "look behind" him, even as he claims that "there are no monsters in the Oval Office."

We'll see about that...

Check out the prequel clip below and be sure to catch the start of Doctor Who's sixth season in April.



Season Six of Doctor Who begins Saturday, April 23rd at 9 pm ET/PT on BBC America.

VIDEO: Doctor Who Opening Credits, Buffy Style

Buffy the Vampire Slayer might be long gone (sadly) and Doctor Who doesn't return for a few more weeks (darn!), but that doesn't mean that you can't smush the two together into something as fun as a jaunty bow-tie.

In this case, this means mashing the familiar opening credit sequence of Buffy with the visuals of the Matt Smith-era Doctor and his companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), with a special appearance by Alex Kingston as River Song, of course.

You can watch this lovingly crafted homage to both Buffy and Doctor Who below.



Season Six of Doctor Who kicks off on April 23rd on BBC America.

Deck the TARDIS: Doctor Who Christmas Special Comes to BBC America on Christmas Day

It seems as though Doctor Who fans in the States are definitely on the nice list.

BBC America has today announced that the latest Doctor Who Christmas Special--entitled "A Christmas Carol"--will air on Saturday, December 25th at 9 pm ET/PT. In other words, on Christmas Day itself, a first for the British sci-fi series.

The Dickens-inspired installment, written by head writer/executive producer Steven Moffat, is described by BBC America thusly: "Newlyweds Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) are joined by Harry Potter’s Michael Gambon and Opera diva Katherine Jenkins, for what may be the Doctor’s most Christmassy adventure yet."

“Oh, we're going for broke with this one," said Moffat in an official statement. "It's all your favorite Christmas movies at once, in an hour, with monsters. And the Doctor. And a honeymoon. And ... oh, you'll see. I've honestly never been so excited about writing anything. I was laughing madly as I typed along to Christmas songs in April. My neighbors loved it so much they all moved away and set up a website demanding my execution. But I'm fairly sure they did it ironically.”

The next season of Who meanwhile, will make its way to the airwaves in Spring 2011 as Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Alex Kingston (reprising her role as River Song), and Mark Sheppard shoot the two-part premiere in Utah.

Meanwhile, the channel will air a Doctor Who marathon beginning December 24th at midnight, featuring a slew of favorite episodes, Christmas specials, and the US premiere of Doctor Who at the Proms, all leading up to the launch of Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol.

The full press release from BBC America can be found below.

BBC AMERICA TO PREMIERE DOCTOR WHO SPECIAL ON CHRISTMAS DAY
Harry Potter’s Michael Gambon Guest Stars in the Holiday-Themed Adventure
Following Matt Smith’s appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on Tuesday November 16, BBC AMERICA announces that the new Doctor Who Christmas Special will premiere in the U.S. for the first time on Christmas Day. The festive Dickens-inspired adventure, A Christmas Carol, is penned by award-winning lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat (Sherlock, Coupling) and premieres Saturday, December 25, 9:00 pm ET.

Newlyweds Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) are joined by Harry Potter’s Michael Gambon and Opera diva Katherine Jenkins, for what may be the Doctor’s most Christmassy adventure yet.

Lead Writer and Executive Producer, Steven Moffat, commented on the upcoming special: “Oh, we're going for broke with this one. It's all your favorite Christmas movies at once, in an hour, with monsters. And the Doctor. And a honeymoon. And ... oh, you'll see. I've honestly never been so excited about writing anything. I was laughing madly as I typed along to Christmas songs in April. My neighbors loved it so much they all moved away and set up a website demanding my execution. But I'm fairly sure they did it ironically.”

Perry Simon, General Manager, Channels, added: “Doctor Who has become a key part of the BBC AMERICA schedule, and having the opportunity to air A Christmas Carol on Christmas Day is like receiving our very own holiday gift. The Timelord may travel through time and space, but he’s certainly found a home at BBC AMERICA.”

Doctor Who is currently filming in Utah for next season’s two-part premiere set in the U.S. during the late ‘60s. Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Alex Kingston and guest star Mark Sheppard are all in production stateside. The next season premieres spring 2011 on BBC AMERICA.

In the run up to A Christmas Carol on Christmas Day, BBC AMERICA will be running a marathon of the series, beginning at midnight on December 24 and leading up to this year’s special. The marathon includes previous Christmas specials and a selection of favorite Doctor Who episodes from recent seasons.

Christmas Day will also see the premiere the Doctor Who Prom, a live concert featuring stars Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill as hosts. The Doctor Who Prom was filmed earlier this year at the world renowned Royal Albert Hall and features appearances from the Weeping Angels, Daleks and the TARDIS. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales, who record the soundtrack for the series, present a selection of intergalactic music – including Murray Gold’s music from the TV show, plus a selection of classical favorites.

Fans can catch up on the new Doctor’s first season with Doctor Who: The Complete Fifth Series Blu-ray and DVD, both are now available in stores.