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Doctor Who Series 8 Premieres August 23rd

World Tour replaces Annual San Diego panel, so there’s no 1st Comic-Con for Capaldi this year

By James DeRuvo (doddleNEWS)

News came out last week that Peter Capaldi, the 13th doctor in the prolific, 50-year-old Doctor Who television series, will have to miss out on his first Comic-Con this year, as the series is still filming in Cardiff. So the cast, and showrunner Steven Moffat, won’t be in Hall H this year, but they are planning an ambitious around-the-world, 12-city world tour in the lead up to the Series 8 world premiere on August 23rd.

 

Why is Capaldi going to miss meeting the Whovians who wait for hours days in line for a chance to get their Who on? Well, it isn’t because he’s a prima donna or anything. It’s because the 8th Series of Doctor Who is still filming and won’t be done before their 12 day world tour. So something had to give and it looks like San Diego was it. Pity too, we have been spoiled as fans here in the western states, with David Tennant and Matt Smith both wowing fans at Comic-Con over the last five or six years. And the 50th anniversary panel was an epic experience, to say the least.

"Sitting here, right now, just before the [series eight] finale shooting block, I've figured out the cliffhanger to the penultimate episode of the next series. And it's a whopper. Ohh, I don't think you'll see this coming!" – Steven Moffat

And Moffat is really looking far in advance, as he’s already talking about Series 9 and how he’s going to end that season. So it sounds most exciting. ?But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Series 8 premieres worldwide on BBC One and BBC America on August 23rd, almost immediately after the Who world tour.

And already we’re starting to see an impressive lineup of old foes including the Cybermen lining up to square off against the Time Lord, as well as rumors that the Daleks are coming back for another round as well. This rumor is a bit sketchy though as talk is that the Beeb wanted to give the Daleks a bit of a rest due to their prominent focus in the last two or three seasons, especially the 50th anniversary special where they were poised to destroy the Doctor’s home planet of Gallifrey. But that was before Capaldi had his say and apparently, he told Moffat that one of his dreams as a kid was to battle the Daleks as the Doctor, so, as Tom Baker said in that special “Who knows … who knows.”

There’s also talk that the Master may return, fueled by speculation from 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy, who let it slip at the Newcastle Comic-Con that the Master would return in Series 8, and that veteran actors Charles Dance amd Steven John Shepherd have been looked at for the role.

But one thing we do know is that there will be a new companion that will be joining Capaldi and current companion Jenna Coleman, in the guise of Danny Pink, who plays a fellow teacher from Coal Hill Secondary School. And that harkens back to the first season of Doctor Who, when the first doctor – played by William Hartnell – had enrolled his grand daughter Susan Foreman in the school and teachers Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton found themselves in the TARDIS for a season full of adventures. Could we see a return to that theme? Wouldn’t that be cool. It’s shaping up to be quite a season, which many are expecting to be darker and more serious, and considering that the final writer for Series 8 is Frank Cottrell Boyce (24 Hour Party People), as well as Moffat’s partner in Sherlockian crime Mark Gatiss, it’s shaping up to be a barn burner.

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