The New Girl

So, the BBC has announced the new companion for the Doctor, or at least, the actress playing her. It's Jenna-Louise Coleman, being referred to by everyone as"'the bird off Emmerdale." I never watch Emmerdale (I'm a Corrie man myself, and I blame that on quiet evenings at work), but I recognise her from Waterloo Road (and apparently, Captain America.)The Radio Times has the full press release, which does the usual job of making her sound like the greatest, most groundbreaking companion in the history of the series, ever. Just like the last one, and the one before that. I'm sure she'll be grand. She's certainly very attractive, so that's the first qualification sorted straight away.

There's also a bit of a breakdown of the structure of the series. It seems, as I expected, that it will run straight through from the autumn start, taking in Christmas along the way. Amy and Rory will be in it for the first five episodes, before being written out in a Weeping Angel story. Apparently, "not everyone gets out alive!" Yeah, right. Nobody stays dead in this programme anymore. Coleman starts her run as the as-yet-unnamed companion in the Christmas Special, before presumably starring in the the remaining eight episodes of the season. Quite what this means for the fiftieth anniversary plans is unclear. I imagine that will be a seperate special in November, after the thirteen episodes of season seven, making fourteen in total.

I recall when, last year, the splitting of season six into two halves caused some worry. We began to fear that this was a sneaky way of reducing the episode count. Well, we were right. This year, the series starts in the autumn, when the second half started last year, and it looks like we're getting only one run of episodes to last the two years. Not that I won't be happy with thirteen top-notch episodes of Doctor Who, but after all that "we are not cutting the number of episodes" guff from Moffat, it feels a bit underhand. Just admit that we're being eased into shorter seasons, don't try to cover it up.

In any case I shall watch the Who news with interest.