‘Doctor Who’ fans flock to the BFI in London for preview screening

WARNING: Do not read this if you don’t want any spoilers about the new series

Hundreds of science fiction fans attended a preview screening for the first episode from the new series of Doctor Who at the British Film Institute in London.

The audience was treated to an exclusive preview of Asylum of the Daleks which features the most number of Daleks ever in an episode of Doctor Who and sees the Doctor confront his greatest foe.

Asylum of the Daleks will follow the standalone episode format that will characterise the new series. Instead of the epic, overarching story that defined series 6 the Doctor will go on many self-contained adventures.

Along with last night’s screening, there was a Q&A session with the show’s stars Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, as well as showrunner Steven Moffat and Executive Producer Caroline Skinner. This will be the last series featuring the Doctor’s companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams played by Gillan and Darvill respectively.

Speaking to the BBC, Smith said he was excited about people’s reactions to the new series and compared working with his co-stars Gillan and Darvill like “being on holiday”. He went on to say “we learnt a lot and progressed together”.

Earlier this month a trailer for series 7 was released on the Doctor Who website and gave viewers a sneak peek of the Doctor coming to face-to-face with his oldest enemy, the shot saw Daleks old and new from various eras of the show.

Series seven will feature guest appearances from Rupert Graves, Mark Williams and Richard E. Grant – who is going to be in this year’s Christmas special and has even played the Doctor in a digital animation and a Comic Relief special.

In the run-up to the fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who next year Skinner says that there will be several ‘live’ events. Earlier this week the BBC announced that it had a commissioned a BBC2 drama called An Adventure in Space and Time penned by Doctor Who writer and Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss. The 90-minute one-off special will tell the story of Doctor Who and how the show was conceived.

Writer Gatiss said: “This is the story of how an unlikely set of brilliant people created a true television original. And how an actor – William Hartnell – stereotyped in hard-man roles became a hero to millions of children. I’ve wanted to tell this story this for more years than I can remember! To make it happen for Doctor Who’s fiftieth birthday is quite simply a dream come true”.

Contrary to rumours, there will not be a regeneration for the fiftieth anniversary and Smith has confirmed that he will be in the Doctor Who series after this one which will be aired over 2013 and 2014.

‘Doctor Who’ will return to BBC1 in September

Image credit: BBC

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• Rob Gregg

  I had been trying to avoid finding out how Rory and Amy died, so thanks for that.

• LegendOfTwili

  Well, there was a warning to be fair.

• Fabbarry

  Thank goodness that dreadful creature, Amy Pond, and Rory are going to be dumped! Also, pleased to hear about the new format. The last series was the worst ever – confusing and poorly written. Hopefully, we might get back to the good old days and style of Russel T!

• http://www.facebook.com/people/Leave-Comments/100001734210294 Leave Comments

  Wow did you REALLY have to so glibly say, “meet their demise at the hand of the weeping angels”? We knew they were going out but honestly I bet you got a lot of pleasure out of ruining it for the rest of us. Yes I know you said there are spoilers, but do they “go out” in the first episode??? I did not expect you to dump an entire plot line in your review.
  I do not even like Amy but I really don’t like you for now for doing that.
  Last year was just dreadful, it was like a big jumble of weird stories and hanging plot-lines. My son and I were trying to review what we remembered and we both realized we really had no cohesive storyline to even pull together and remember.
  I did not like that at all.