The new series of Doctor Who will be split into two for the first time, with its showrunner, Steven Moffat, promising the show’s biggest ever cliffhanger – “an earth-shattering climax”.

Next year’s 13-part series, the sixth since Doctor Who returned in 2005, will run for seven episodes and then return in the autumn for another six.

Moffat said the Easter “mid-season finale” would be a “game-changing cliffhanger”.

He added that next year’s Doctor Who would run as two separate series, allowing him to double the number of “event episodes” in the new run, and meant fans would never be more than a few months away from the next instalment of the hit BBC1 show.

“Looking at the next series I thought what this show needs is a big event in the middle,” Moffat told the Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival.

“I kept referring to a mid-season finale. So we are going to make it two series – seven episodes at Easter building to an earth-shattering climax, a cliffhanger we could never normally do because it would be too long before it came back. An enormous game-changing cliffhanger that will change everything.

“The wrong expression would be to say we are splitting it in two. We are making it two separate series.

“What I love about this idea is that when kids see Doctor Who go off the air, they will be noticeably taller when it comes back. It’s an age for children. With an Easter series, an autumn series and a Christmas special, you are never going to be more than few months from the new series of Doctor Who.

“Tart that I am, we will now have two first nights and two finales, twice as many event episodes as we had before.”

Moffat, who was also responsible for BBC1′s acclaimed updating of Sherlock Holmes, took over stewardship of Doctor Who from Russell T Davies last year. His first series in charge was acclaimed by viewers and critics alike.

Moffat gave festival delegates a first glimpse of this year’s Christmas special, guest-starring Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins.

Moffat said he chose Matt Smith as his Doctor on the very first day of casting.

“He has that air about him, he’s like a young man built by old men from memory,” he added.

He first saw Karen Gillan, who plays the doctor’s assistant Amy Pond, on video and was worried that she was “wee and dumpy”. When he met her, he said, he was “expecting a beachball and met this giant flame-haired goddess who is slightly too tall for my comfort. Standing next to her when she has heels on, you feel like the sidecar of a motorbike”.

Moffat dismissed some press criticism, early in this year’s series, that Amy Pond was “too sexy”.

“That’s like being too funny, too nice, too enjoyable,” said Moffat. “I was roaring with laughter at the article in the Daily Mail, which said when did Doctor Who assistants have to be sexy. Since the beginning! There was one in a leather bikini — we’re in the nursery compared to that.”

Moffat said the show’s budget had remained broadly similar despite BBC cuts. But he admitted: “I don’t understand numbers. It’s a decent budget. I beg for money and more rubber green people and eventually they say OK, you can have a third rubber green person.”

He added that he had not considered a female Doctor, which he said would not have been appropriate at this time in the show’s history.

“No we didn’t. I think about it sometimes and maybe it will happen someday. It wouldn’t have been right this time,” he said. “A woman can play the part. You have to remember the single most important thing about regeneration is you must convince the audience and the children that’s it’s not a new man, it’s not a different man, it’s the same one. It’s a bigger ask if you turn him into a woman.”

Discussing his future, Moffat said he would not be leaving the show “for a while yet”.

Gillan, in the same TV festival sessions, said she was committed to the show for the new series.

She added that filming on the show, which lasts 11 days a fortnight for nine months, meant she was unable to work on any other projects. As for her future, she said she was committed to the new series but was taking it one season at a time.

“I have no idea. You just have to take it series by series, you can’t really look beyond that so who knows? I’m having fun right now,” she added.

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I’m trying out a new style of updates for the gallery as I keep falling behind on bulk image updates. If you find these get annoying, or prefer the old style of updates, please let me know.

Gallery Link:
- Public Appearances > Matt Smith > Womb Photocall at 63rd Locarno Film Festival – August 7, 2010

Two Doctor Who mini-episodes will be released on the upcoming season five DVD collection.

According to the Los Angeles Times, two newly filmed sequences called ‘Meanwhile, In The Tardis’ will show fans what The Doctor (Matt Smith) and Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) were up to in between episodes.

Both mini-episodes were written by Doctor Who executive producer Steven Moffat.

The Doctor Who season five boxset will be released in the US and UK in November.

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The next episode of Doctor Who won’t be airing for months yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t already be getting excited about it. The show’s Christmas special, which hits our screens on December 25 (strangely enough) is already being pushed as “the most Christmassy Christmas special ever.” It’ll certainly be happier fare than last year’s “The End of Time, Part 1.”

Then there’s also the fact that it’s co-starring Albus Dumbledore. Michael Gambon, who we previously reported was on board the episode (which is tentatively titled “Father Who?”), has been described by the head writer Steven Moffat as being “brilliant.”

“Of course he’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. What a voice,” Moffat shared about the acclaimed stage actor.

Gambon, however, was apparently not the biggest Who fan in Britain. “I didn’t get the impression that he was a fan of Doctor Who, except insofar as everyone in Britain is at the moment,” he explained. “[But] if it’s a good script [and] they’re being offered prime-time on Christmas day… there’s a real chance you can get anyone for that.”

What role Gambon will play amongst members of the TARDIS is currently unknown, though it would not be out of the question to see him portraying Ebeneezer Scrooge, since the episode has been described as a “clever twist” on the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol.

Before his stint on Doctor Who, Gambon will reprise his role as famed wizard Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 due out in November. Part 2 will follow in July.

Doctor Who‘s Christmas special will air on Christmas day before the series returns for a sixth series the following spring.

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Starz’ “Torchwood” reboot will be titled “Torchwood: The New World” and creator Russell T Davies gave some insight into the storyline.

The new story will follow a CIA agent (Rex) and analyst (Ester) who tackle an alien-related global issue. Torchwood, having been destroyed and disbanded, is “like a legend now … it’s like something that’s ceased to exist and is now spoken of only in whispers.” Soon, Rex and Ester are on the run and are seeking out the help of Captain Jack and Gwen.

“The two teams coming together is a big part of the story — are they friends or enemies? There’s a lot of sparks and excitement.”

“We definitely have a really big story to tell,” added executive producer Julie Gardner. “It’s absolutely rebooted to welcome in a new audience.”

(Hear that “reboot” haters? She said “reboot.” Reboot! Reboot!).

The ten episodes will be very fast paced, telling a self-contained story with the miniseries “Children of Earth” being used as a template.

Being on Starz, the show could potentially take advantage of looser standards for nudity and violence.

“I’ve always had loose standards and practices,” Davies said. “If the story demands intimacy or savagery, we will go there absolutely … [but] there’s nothing better than a great big global thriller that stops for a sex scene — it’s probably hard to make that happen in a thriller.”

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The new writing team for the fourth series of Torchwood has been confirmed, and it includes names familiar to a number of US-produced series.

Russell T Davies, Torchwood‘s creator, head writer and executive producer, will be joined by Doris Egan, Jane Espenson, John Fay and John Shiban. They will share the writing duties with Davies – who has already written the first episode – for the rest of the 10-part series, which is a US/UK.

In 2005, Davies was responsible for the successful revitalising of the BBC’s long-running science-fiction drama, Doctor Who, which Torchwood is a spin-off from. He is also responsible for a number of other well-known dramas, including Queer As Folk, The Second Coming and Mine All Mine, as well as a second Who spin-off – The Sarah Jane Adventures, which stars Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith.

Egan has already worked on House and Dark Angel, Espenson on Battlestar Galactica and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Shiban on Supernatural and The X Files. Fay has already written for Torchwood, sharing some of the writing duties with Davies on its third series.

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Given that the annual “Doctor Who” Christmas special is still several months out, I knew full well that Steven Moffat wouldn’t be willing to offer up much in the way of information about what we could expect to see come December, but since I’d been fortunate enough to sit down with him – along with Mark Gatiss – in connection with their work on “Sherlock” (which comes to PBS in October), I couldn’t very well miss the chance to ask about it, anyway.

I started off with a non-specific question, asking how Michael Gambon had found his way into the “Who”-niverse.

“We sent him a script, asked him to do it, and he said, ‘Yes,’” said Moffat. “Simple as that.”

Had Gambon been a fan of the show?

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I didn’t get the impression that he was a fan of ‘Doctor Who,’ except insofar as everyone in Britain is at the moment, but it’s really…with these guys, send them a good part and there’s a really stonking chance they’ll do it. I mean, if it’s a good script…and you think it is…they’re being offered prime-time on Christmas day, really, so there’s a real chance you can get anyone for that. But it’s very exciting. He’s brilliant. Of course he’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. What a voice.”

The time had come to make the jump and ask something specific, so I wondered aloud if the teaser line at the end of season finale about the Orient Express in space would indeed come to pass come this Christmas.

“Who knows?” replied Moffat, stonefaced.

I told him he was a terrible person…which caused the stone face to break into a laugh.

“You wouldn’t really want to know,” he said. “I can tell. Also, what you have to keep in mind that I genuinely lie. I do. I actively lie to people about what’s going to happen in ‘Doctor Who.’ I’m not officially employed with the BBC. I can say any old thing I like. Even if I told you something, there’s no guarantee that it’s true. Disinformation and the white noise of nonsense is how we get through this!”

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