Neil Gaiman's Doctor Who To Feature Cybermen, Warwick Davis And Tamzin Outhwaite

[Brendon Connelly]

The BBC have made it official and announced that Neil Gaiman's episode of Doctor Who for the New Year run is to feature the Cybermen.

They're not giving away much about the plotline, but here's what they have shared:

Starring Matt Smith as the Doctor and Jenna-Louise Coleman as the new companion, the episode co-stars Warwick Davis , Tamzin Outhwaite and Jason Watkins as a band of misfits on a mysterious planet...

Watkins is great and Davis is fun, and Outhwaite has a history in UK soaps, just like Suranne Jones who starred in Gaiman's first episode, The Doctor's Wife, and that worked out just fine and dandy.

Neil Gaiman: giving great Who roles to the women of British soaps since 2010.

Moffat's quote on the matter is just what you'd expect it to be:

Cybermen were always the monsters that scared me the most! Not just because they were an awesome military force, but because sometimes they could be sleek and silver and right behind you without you even knowing.

And with one of the all-time classic monsters returning, and a script from one of our finest novelists, it's no surprise we have attracted such stellar names as Tamzin, Jason and Warwick.

Pinning Gaiman down as a novellist is interesting.

The episode will be directed by Stephen Woolfenden who shot second unit for Warm Bodies andeveral Harry Potter films and has directed for the TV series Trinity, Echo Beach and The Mysti Show.

It's worth noting that the BBC sign off their release on the matter with:

Doctor Who returns on December 25th for the Christmas Special and is back for a run of eight episodes in spring, 2013.

Which reveals a good break between the next episode and the one after. Spring suggests at least March, maybe April. That's a good long wait.

What with that and Jenna-Louise Colemen being called nothing more than "the new companion," this press-release has yielded supernerd discussion fodder even beyond Neil Gaiman Plus Cybermen Plus Wicket The Ewok.

[SpringheelWTC]

Your choice of photo implies you know more about the plot than what's been said.

[Timber-Munki]

Well if they quietly ditch the 'delete' catchphrase they had from their reintroduction I'll be happy.

Ideally I'd like to see something chilling like The Tenth Planet iteration vocals-wise, preferably completely artificial/computer generated (As much as I like Nicholas Brigg's work on the Daleks I don't feel having a human say the cyberman dialogue works). Compare:

You Belong To Us. You Shall Be Like Us. - YouTube
&
Cyberman Delete Noise - YouTube

[Rich Flair]

Spring? Are they making them backwards? I'm sure I read an interview with Moffat not so long ago where he said that the new scheduling allows Doctor Who to be broadcast when the evenings are dark, like the old days. Well, the last 5 were on when the evenings are light, and there's no dark evenings in Spring.