The BBC now has the full trailer for series four on the Doctor Who webs page. Unusually for this organization they have made the trailer available world wide. There is no indication that this is a new policy - they may have done this by accident. So, if you are reading this outside of the UK, then after you have read this make a dash for the Doctor Who website!
Confirmed guest stars are also getting in to the press. Fenella Woolgar will play Agatha Christie in the episode which will explain - or attempt to - the crime author's mysterious real life two week disappearance.
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Woolgar is perhaps best known for fabulous and moving turn in the Stephen Fry directed “Bright Young Things” an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's “Vile Bodies”. David Tennant had a support role in the movie, pre Doctor Who and full on stardom of course!
Also appearing in the same episode will be Felicity Kendal as Lady Clemency Addison.
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Kendal is best remembered in the UK for her role as Barbara Good in the BBC's comedy “The Good Life” about a couple who set up an eco-friendly lifestyle in the nineteen seventies.
The comic actor Tim McInnery is also confirmed as being in the new series.
Rumors and debates continue to abound about the new series. The main feature of discussion on fan sites is how bad Catherine Tate is going to be. People should honestly give her a chance and wait and see - this reviewer's prophecy is that she is going to be a revelation. After all, those of you old enough to recall Peter Davison taking over from Tom Baker may remember the general dismay that abounded among fans at the time. Of course, ninety nine percent of people were converts after his first episode. Tate may well bring pathos not broad comedy to the show!
The UK's leading tabloid newspaper is also in hot water with the BBC. The paper is standing by its claim that the BBC deliberately leaked the scripts of episodes nine and ten to the press in an attempt to give the season some publicity. The BBC is, of course, strenuously denying this. However, some cherries that the sun has given away follow (do not read if you don't want to know!).
Donna Noble and the Doctor will be transported to an enormous library sometime in the fifty first century. The library has been abandoned for many years (general spookiness ensues!). As for the books they are full of spoilers - but about people's lives! So, the temptation will be there for the pair to take a peek in to their own futures. Will they be able to resist?
The episodes will also include the enticingly named “Data ghosts” plus someone called the Suit Creature which sounds like it may have shades of the Empty Child from series one. To top everything there will also be a type of piranha of the air - the Vashta Nerada. These creatures will have a nasty habit - flesh melting! Of course, there will be the usual amount of dead bodies scattered around as well. Alex Kingston, known from ER, will also star in this episode as an Indiana Jones type adventurer cum archaeologist.
Donna will lose the Doctor - why do assistants have this uncanny knack? She will then meet a Doctor Moon. Rumor abounds that this will in fact be The Master, the role reprised again by John Sim. Only time will tell!
The Fires of Pompeii will be the second episode of the season and it sounds like a treat. Anyone aware of history will know that this episode will inevitably be set just before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. It is only the second time the Doctor will have visited ancient Roman times - the previous time was during William Hartnell's era - the eponymously named “The Romans”.
Of course the Sontarans are back in this series - this has been well publicized by the BBC on their own website. The episode will be called “The Sontaran Stratagem” but there is no information yet as to the name of the second Sontaran episode.
Yet to be announced, however, is the return of one the Doctor's great enemies. Yes, come forward, Davros, creator of the Daleks! It has not been announced yet either whether Davros will be pure CGI, an actor under heavy prosthetics or indeed a combination of the two.
As well as the confirmation about the return of the Ood (the giveaway is in the title of episode t here - “Planet of the Ood”), rumors abound that Series Four will also see The Sea Devils and Unit battling it out again, the Axons (an old enemy from the Jon Pertwee era) and Sabalom Glitz. Of course these may just be rumors as Russell T Davis is on the record as saying that he will only resurrect one old enemy each series and series four already has two confirmed!
