Well, it looks like that was a temporary cover as the ridiculously-named but otherwise fantastic Blogtor Who have posted the cover artwork along with the revelation that it’s going to be lenticular, much like the Series Two cover. Amazon UK currently shows what seems to be an earlier version of the cover, using a different pose for Amy and lacking the monsters.

Meanwhile Amazon US is still using the artwork I showed you, so it’s possible that American audiences will wind up with that along with their slimmer packaging.

I live in LA now, and I had been importing my Doctor Who DVDs from the UK (I still do with the classic stuff so that my collection looks uniform on the shelf). Doctor Who: The Complete Specials was the first set I’d bought from the US. If BBC America doesn’t use the cover Blogtor Who have shown us then I’ll be left with little choice but to import from the UK. Or something.

SERIES 6 IS GOING TO BE SPLIT IN HALF AND PARTLY AIR IN SPRING AND PARTLY IN AUTUMN, WAH.
The split transmission is the result of a request from Steven Moffat to write a new Doctor Who story arc which involves a big plot twist in the middle of the series. By splitting the series Moffat plans to give viewers one of the most exciting Doctor Who cliffhangers and plot twists ever, leaving them waiting, on the edge of their seats, until the autumn to find out what happens.
Massive plot twist, eh? Unannounced regeneration, perhaps? I FUCKING WELL HOPE NOT.

Well. Well, well, well. I suggest you watch this.

You don’t have to be an expert in subtly reading body language and hidden meaning to make the assumption that Cumberbatch is referring to the fact that he’s likely as not going to be appearing in more than one episode of Doctor Who at some point in the future. Unless you’re going to believe The Sun’s rumour-mongering about Matt Smith leaving after next year (and I’m choosing to stick my fingers in my ears and go LAA LAA LAAAA about that on), there’s only one safe conclusion to draw: he’s playing The Master.

Or possibly Omega.

Or whoever else is behind The Silence.

But probably The Master.

So, filming for El Chrimbo Speciale has finally begun, and courtesy of the ever-reliable “alun vega” on Flickr (is this a special account set up of a variety of scoopers to use, does anyone know? Or is it really just one person that takes every good filming picture ever?), we can see that the Doctor has got a SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT NEW OUTFIT:

Doctor Who struggled with its premiere episode. As we all know by now, “The Beast Below” was intended to be the first episode but Fox decided to dick around with the broadcast order as well as demanding that a brand new, more “introductory” pilot be filmed. Then they cancelled the show halfway through the series anyway. Bastards. A shame too, because we were just getting to know that funny old young man and his travelling machine.

Fortunately for us, the original ending for “The Eleventh Hour” has found its way onto YouTube. A DVD release looks uncertain, but if Fox get off their arses and actually release the show on DVD then this is the sort of extra I’d like to see.

The original ending can be found here.

“They’ve released images of the final boxart for Series Fnarg. Here, have a look.”
“Is that it? That looks shite! It’s just the bloody promo shot from before the series launched. ”
“Well yes, but actually it’s really rather clever.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is.”
“How?”
“Well, it’s part of a pattern, doesn’t it? Series Two and Four both featured the time vortex on the cover.”
“Did they?”
“Yep. Remember? Series Two had that lenticular thingy. And Series Four had Donna and the Doctor standing in front of a very reflective vortex.”
“So?”
“Well, it means there’s a pattern! All the other sets involve the TARDIS in some way. Series One had the TARDIS exterior, and Series Three and the David Tennant Specials used the TARDIS floor as part of the design! There’s logic behind this decision!”
“You’re an odd bastard, d’you know that? Does the set at least come with some decent extras?”
“Actually, yes. Bleeding Cool Comic News have reported that Series Fnarg will feature two brand new ‘bridging sequences’ called Meanwhile, In The TARDIS… that have apparently been newly filmed.”
“Pretty clever, the way you said the URL like that.”
“I thought so.”
“So… what now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we’re not real. We’re just disembodied voices who exist solely to make a point about about some DVD artwork.”
“And Bluray.”
“And Bluray, yes. But we’ve served our purpose now. What happens next?”
“Hm. I dunno. I guess we just sort of… stop.”
“Stop? Like, dead?”
“We were never really alive.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know. Here it comes. Are you ready?”
“No.”
“Me either.”

I loves me the time travel, is the thing.

It’s not the reason I originally got into Doctor Who – at least, I don’t think so. At the tender age I was when a Dalek chased Sylvester McCoy up some stairs, I wasn’t yet as hung up on the notion of time travel fiction as I’d later become. But the story possibilities offered by a central character that can hop around time are almost certainly among the reasons I’ve stuck around all these years. And it’s not something that I’m necessarily sure that RTD – for all the strengths of his run – shared. It’s true that the words that persuaded Rose to join the Doctor in the TARDIS were “It also travels in time”, but for Russell, the time travel was still more about the places (just places in the past and future) that could be visited. But considering that a number of my favourite films have words like “Back”, “Future”, “Bill” and “Ted” in their titles, it’s clear that what I like about a time travel story is the chance to play with the sequential – to wit, the sort of story in which a single changed event can create an alternate timeline, or the sort in which a character can influence their own present by pledging to use time travel to set up the past retrospectively.

And it’s clear from “The Big Bang” that Moffat – who’s always enjoyed playing with narrative order in shows that didn’t hand him the keys to a time machine – is a bit of a fan of that sort of thing as well.

So, after 11(+) weeks witnessing a story arc laid down by the THE GRAND MOFF, Lord King Master of all He Surveys, we have his delicious fruits laid bare for all to see with the first episode of the series 5 finale, The Pandorica Opens. It’s certainly fair to say that this has been the most talked about series arc since Bad Wolf, and despite the excellence of that series 1 finale, I think we were all hoping for a somewhat more meaty and satisfying conclusion this year.

Well, Series Fnarg is over. And we’ll have plenty of comment to come – we’ve still got reviews of both eps 12 and 13 (as it happens, a wedding – yes, on 26.06.10 – got in the way of Capps doing “Pandorica”, and I’ll do “Big Bang” once that one’s clear) to post, but as well as that we’ll also do a big old retrospective of the series as a whole, and how the episodes stand up in context, and that sort of thing.

In the meantime, though, there’s one thing that surely everybody with any sense can agree on – Matt Smith was fucking brilliant. Not just “the Eleventh Doctor”. Not just “the new Doctor”. Simply… the Doctor. Effortlessly, wonderfully so. And in reflecting on just how perfect he turned out to be in the role (and from his first moments onscreen, to boot), thoughts naturally turned to how we reacted to his casting back when it was first announced.

Kicking this one off even earlier, just in case anyone’s got any comments/speculation they’d like to add before tomorrow evening. Remember also that we’ve got an early start tomorrow, with the episode broadcasting at 6.05pm.

But in the meantime… what do you reckon’s going to happen? As ever, actual bona fide spoilers aren’t welcome until after the episode finishes, but feel free to speculate to your hearts’ content. My favourite theory so far is as follows:
We already saw (ep 5) the doctor turn up in consecutive scenes with and without a jacket, and there’s this woman people have been calling ‘doctor’ for some time, locked in the TARDIS as it is being destroyed. I reckon she is going to find a severed limb of the doctor and touch it and for no particular reason this will clone the doctor and make her a Time Lord too and they will swan about and between the three of them stop the TARDIS from being destroyed and stop the universe from being erased.

Wait sorry, now that I’ve written it down I realise this is absolute gibberish.
My other favourite theory is that Steven “Letch” Moffat has written an episode called “The Big Bang” with Karen Gillan in it so that… oh, alright, I’ll stop there.