UPDATE - New New Doctor News

This week is a big week for us Canadian Doctor Who fans. Forget Star Trek, Battlestar and Harry Potter, my favourite sci-fi show always has and will be Doctor Who.



I've already reported that current Doctor David Tennant is leaving the show (and rumoured to be the first choice to play Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit) and that relative unknown Matt Smith will be taking up the role when the series returns for a full season of episodes following this year of "specials".


Well, the BBC has just released the first photo of Smith in costume as the Doctor, alongside Karen Gillan, who'll be playing new companion Amy Pond.



New show runner Steven Moffat is long-time fan and wrote the best episodes of the new series since its revival. He has this to say about the new season, which is just getting underway now:


And here it is, the big moment - the new Doctor, and his new best friend. And here's me, with the job I wanted since I was seven. 40 years to here! If I could go back in time and tell that little boy that one day all this would happen, he'd scream, call for his Mum and I'd be talking to you now from a prison cell in 1969. So probably best not then.


Matt and Karen are going to be incredible, and Doctor Who is going to come alive on Saturday nights in a whole new way - and best of all, somewhere out there, a seven-year-old is going to see them, fall in love, and start making a forty year plan...


Wow. He's a total geek. Which is awesome. Find more on the new series on Doctor Who's BBC website.


As an added bonus, Space begins a week of Who related premieres! Starting tonight, they're airing Who spin off Torchwood's five part miniseries Children of Earth. And it all culminates with the Canadian premiere of the latest Doctor Who special Planet of the Dead, starring the outgoing David Tennant.


I leave you with a photo of Karen Gillan, the new companion. The cast is so young it appears as if the TARDIS will be manned by college kids bumming around Europe for a summer. If it's anything like most college trips, they'll wind up with alcohol poisoning, a dose of the clap, and a guy from Australia who just leeches onto them and shows up at every hostel they check into.

UPDATE:

Here's a better picture of the New Doctor and his new travelling companion outside the TARDIS:

Frankly, I like his simpler look. I never really favoured the overly designed look of other Doctors.