New Doctor Who will be announced Saturday
The BBC will announce the 11th actor to play the Doctor tomorrow night on a special edition of Doctor Who Confidential, once again proving that nobody keeps spoilers under wraps like the Beeb. Lucasfilm just wishes they could clamp down on stuff like that.
There are a lot of names being thrown about, including Catherine Tate (!), which would put me in the really strange position of having to admit that I have a little bit of a thing for Doctor Who, and then hastily explaining that I don’t mean Tom Baker or David Tennant. My own dream pick would be, sadly, someone who isn’t free from their last gig just yet (Lost’s Henry Ian Cusick), but really, I’d kinda like it to be someone I’ve never heard of before. One of the reasons Tennant cemented the public’s affection for him, aside from playing the part brilliantly, is that he was hungrier for the exposure than his predecessor was: he was up for the demands of publicity and promotion. Eccleston is a much more private guy and just seemed like he wanted to hide after the first round of appearances. Surely someone had warned him that the phrase “I am the Doctor” carried with it almost a certain level of responsibility.
So in that vein, it’d be neat if the eleventh Doctor was someone who was as hungry for the exposure – all of the exposure – as Tennant has been. Which probably means someone relatively unknown and youngish (I am resigned, at my age, to the probability that from here on out, Doctor Who – one of my fictional heroes since I was around 8 years old or so – will be younger than I am).
I did get a chuckle, however, at Russell T. Davies’ reaction when he learned that Robert Carlyle was out of the running because he’d taken the lead role in the upcoming Stargate spinoff, Stargate: Voyager…no, wait, sorry, Stargate: Universe – apparently it was along the lines of “What was he thinking? Has his agent even watched the show?” 😛… Read more
