Daleks from Across the Decades & Going Solo in Series 9

Andrew Reynolds 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.

Series 9 is nearly upon us and, with positive early spoiler free reviews and a glut of new interviews – covering everything from Dalek nostalgia, a one-hander Doctor Who episode, facing down fans expectations, the odd chat show appearance and a little bit of method Dalek acting; it’s time for a mini news blast.

Daleks Old & New

It’s Daleks aplenty in the opening double header with Peter Capaldi particularly admiring the 1960’s incarnation. As The Magician’s Apprentice trailer shows, the Twelfth Doctor will come face to face with a horde of battle ready Daleks – ranging from RTD era models to the Special Weapons Dalek – and, for the nostalgic and the Doctor himself, it’s the older models that continue to fascinate.

“I don’t have a particular favourite, but I do like to see the little old ones,” he said. “They’re very sweet as they’re quite small – but actually they’re still strangely brutal, nasty little pieces of work.

You get a whole group of them together in the opening episode. I think we had about 20 of them in the studio so that was very exciting.”

Dalek Theme Park

Someone who probably found the less exciting is Blink director Hettie Macdonald who has handed the enormous task of wrangling the Dalek horde – at least it amused her leading man.

“Once you had them all moving, it was very funny watching Hettie directing them,” Capaldi said “because she was directing them like actors – ‘You’re getting upset at this moment, have a look at your friends’ – and they’d look at their friends and then she’d say, ‘You need to look nervous now’, and they’d actually be able to convey nervousness”

“It was actually very, very clever. It was like being in a Dalek theme park, with a free ticket, so that was fun.”

The Doctor, Truly on His Own…

Something else fun is the first ever solo Doctor Who episode. Confirming recent rumours, Steven Moffat has announced that Peter Capaldi will star in a special ‘one hander’ episode – featuring no characters other than the Doctor.

In the past, absent co-stars usually meant slashed budgets but, this time, it’s the challenge that drew the Doctor Who team to leave Capaldi as the last Time Lord standing.

“We always like a new challenge on the show,” Moffat said. “I can’t tell you too much about this, but it’s certainly unique and a big first for the show!”

Moffat also promises to bring us: “urban thrillers, underwater ghost stories [and] journeys that take us from Vikings to the end of time”.

I Don’t Look Down

One man who wasn’t looking to make any promises when it came to pleasing audiences was Peter Capaldi.

Reflecting upon his first series as the Doctor, Capaldi told The Red Bulletin he wasn’t looking for validation from audiences but admitted it was a risk to make his Doctor less accessible than predecessor Matt Smith.

“I was very nervous about playing the part, but I didn’t really think about the expectations of the fans,” Capaldi said. “I just tried to think about playing the part of the Doctor as best as I could.

“I didn’t want to seek the audience’s approval. I think they must find out whether they like you or not. It is a risk. I just had to dive in.”

As for the pressure of being the focal point of one of the most popular shows in the world, Capaldi tries not to think about it: “”I sort of try not to look down – do you know what I mean? If I become over-conscious of the scale of interest in it, then I think that would make me a difficult person to live with.”

Doctor Who Series 9 will be along soon. September 19th, to be precise…

The post Daleks from Across the Decades & Going Solo in Series 9 appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.