The Best Doctor Who April Fools of 2015

Jonathan Appleton is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Everyone likes a good April Fool, and the Doctor Who community is no different. It’s now something of a tradition that daybreak on April 1st each year sees a flurry of unlikely stories on Doctor Who websites, each trying to con readers into swallowing the unbelievable.

To be considered a great April Fool a story has to have the right blend of being just credible enough to sound convincing, combined with an element of the absurd to make it newsworthy. No easy task for gagsters to pull off, then, so let’s check out this year’s efforts in the Kasterborous guide to the Best April Fools of 2015!

Postponement Shocker!

The Gallifrey Times tried to persuade us that Series 9 had been postponed a full two years until Autumn 2017, the spurious grounds being that the Moff felt like it, given long gaps between series haven’t put anyone off watching Sherlock.

A bit of a cruel trick, this one, and it’s not so hard to believe people being taken in by it given all that chopping and changing in recent times with split series and that year of specials in 2009. A nice reveal, though, with the Doctor chalking ‘April Fool’ up on the board…

Foolishness rating: 7/10

Jackson to Direct!

Next up, who fancies the idea of Lord of the Rings supremo Peter Jackson directing a Doctor Who film with all the surviving Doctors?

Well, you’re an idiot if you were taken in ‘cos not a word of it was true! Jackson’s professed enthusiasm for directing an episode in his native New Zealand may have been enough to convince the credulous that this one may have been real, but perhaps the thing that gives it away long before the closing pay-off is the clearly impossible notion that Christopher Eccleston would be tempted back for an Avengers Assemble-style Doctor Who mash-up…

Foolishness rating: 5/10

Mr River Song?

One for those who were watching the last series finale now, with news that River Song would be regenerating into a man’s body in the next series! Eddie Izzard, James Corden and Idris Elba are supposedly in the frame for the role, with the article going on to speculate as to whether River would still have the hots for the Doctor in her new male form.

There’s a plea for greater awareness of transgender issues before the game is given away, but it’s hard to imagine many people being taken in by this one…

Foolishness rating: 4/10

Scream! It’s One Direction!

Brit boy band megastars One Direction have already made one now-legendary appearance in the world of Doctor Who, of course, failing to be heard on a satellite link up in that 50th anniversary debacle of a live show on BBC3 on 23rd November 2013. And that nugget of information, curiously missing from this attempt to convince us that the band are lined up to take part in an episode, may well have convinced some people that this could actually be on the cards. You can be sure that Moffat would be well up for it if they ever were…

Foolishness rating: 8/10

Captain Jack To Take Charge

Okay, I don’t wish to be unkind but could there have been anyone in the galaxy taken in by the idea that John Barrowman has been appointed Steven Moffat’s successor as showrunner? (“I couldn’t stay forever now could I?” Moffat is supposed to have said…)

Although the comment that Barrowman has the requisite experience on the grounds that he’s ‘produced his own stage shows for years’ made me chuckle…

Foolishness rating: 2/10

Capaldi Loses It!

How about the news that the very future of Doctor Who is in doubt after Peter Capaldi went all Malcolm Tucker on us and smacked a Dalek right in the eye stalk? Full marks for topicality, of course, what with Jeremy Clarkson being the top story on the news for what felt like weeks lately, but the comment that the Dalek was one day away from retirement was surely over-egging this particular Easter treat…

Foolishness rating: 3/10

Russell Returns!

Oh, the headline for this one about former showrunner contributing two scripts for Series 9 is surely enough to have caused a pang of hope for many, but they were cruelly let down as it became clear that this story was bobbins.

RTD’s fake comment that he fancied coming back because “I always thought that last seventeen or so minutes with the Tenth Doctor didn’t quite go on for long enough, and finally I’ve been given a chance to add to it” is a decent gag, though, and there’s no doubt Moffat would snap his arm off in one bite if the big man ever did want to come back…

Foolishness rating: 7/10

Which are you favourites? Which were you taken in by? And what did you think of our effort? Let us know below!

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