Doctor Who Series premieres on 9/1 in US and UK; prologue web mini-series starts 8/27
Doctor Who fans don’t have to hold it anymore. The Great Question has been answered. No, not the one about Life, The Universe and Everything, or even the one that will be asked on the Fields of Trenzilor at the Fall Of The Eleventh. The BIG question – “When will Doctor Who premiere?”
And the answer is, September 1st. And it’s the SAME answer whether you live in America or the UK, with only a slight variance in detail. In the UK, the premiere episode Asylum of the Daleks will broadcast at 7:20 PM, and in the states at 9 PM, EDT.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNHEEZ_I74U]
The episode has already seen its premiere in the UK via a gala celebration, and will see its US premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City on August 25th. Tickets for the NYC event sold out in under half an hour, the rush of hopeful fans crashing the Movietickets.com website.
Over and above the welcome news of the premiere, the big surprise was that the premiere will be preceded by a five-part webisode mini series. The story, entitled “Pond Life”, will feature Amy and Rory PondWilliams attempting to live a normal life, outside the TARDIS. The synopsis of Asylum suggests that said normal life may not be going too smoothly. Series stars Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill discuss the mini-adventure on the BBC Website.
The episodes, written by Chris Chibnall, will be released one day, starting Monday, August 27th on the BBC website. They’ll also be made available in the UK, via BBC’s interactive “Red Button” service. Plans are proceeding on how the episodes will be released by BBC America— look for an update soon.
These webisodes are a continuation of the episode prequels from the previous season, each of which featured a brief extra scene from several episodes of the series. These prequels were included on the later video releases, it’s presumed this mini-series will also appear in this season’s set.
In honor of this surprise, Your Humble Reporter has crafted a suggested logo for the mini-series, inspired by a popular Britcom which starred a number of actors who later appeared on Doctor Who:
(Update: yes, 9/1, not 8/1 as we originally had in the headline. We’re dumb.)
The season premiere of a TV show about a Time Lord starting on AUGUST 1st? I see what you did there! :)
Vinnie, just a nitpick. Even if the Brits had to wait until 9PM or those of us on this side of the Atlantic got to see it at 7:20pm, that “slight variance” would be a hell of a lot more than just a “slight variance.” The UK is 5 hours ahead of the US. So when the Brits are sitting down at 7:20 pm watching the Doctor, folks in the Eastern Time Zone in the US will still have to wait more than 6 1/2 hours (when it’s 7:20 pm in London, it’s 2:20 pm in NYC). Or put another way, by the time the folks in NYC are watching the Doctor at 9 pm, folks in London will have been in bed for a couple of hours, sleeping soundly, knowing they went to bed with knowledge that the Americans are still awaiting.
OTOH, one suspects that it will be possible to download the episode beginning about 8:45PM London time..
Will the episode aired on BBC America be the same as the one aired in the UK, or will there be cuts or changes?
The original airing on BBCA is usually the full episode. Unless, of course, there’s something the censors deem inappropriate enough to cut out, which, does tend to happen quite a bit on other BBC shows. Considering in the UK Doctor Who is a kids’ show that would rarely be the case.
After the original premiere date, they do start clipping the episodes to bits to make room for more commercials.
UK is only 5 hours ahead of US if you are on the East coast, I am on the West coast so when the UK gets to see the premiere episode it will be over 9 1/2 hours later before i get to see it, by which time it will be around 4am Sunday in the UK!!
I can’t wait. “The Pond Life” sounds intriguing.
(Please check out my DW story “The Aresian Saga”