16 Things to Look Forward to in ’16

Simon Mills 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.

Lists! The world is dominated by lists around this time of year. Honours lists. Film and TV awards lists. Shopping lists. The list of lists is endless! Not wanting to be outdone, we’ve compiled a list of our own. This one is all about the things we’re looking forward to in the expanded worlds of Doctor Who across the multiple mediums that the Whoniverse inhabits. So, without further ado…

Thing 1: The top thing on my list of things to look forward to in 2016 (and in this case way beyond) is no more River Song! Yes, I know there’s a lot of love for River out there, but her story arc is really (no, REALLY) done now. This last Christmas special was really The River Song Christmas Special with a guest appearance from the Doctor. That’ll be enough now, thanks. Let’s have some new and original strong female characters to take the show forward, please?

Thing 2: Of course, the top actual thing on this thing list is that Doctor Who series 10 thing. We’ve been promised new writers and a lighter series this year after the dark places that series 9 took us, with an angry and desperate Doctor ready to risk universal destruction in order to save Clara and spending 4.5 billion years doing so in some sort of timey-wimey Groundhog Day scenario. Who knows, we might even get an episode directed by Peter Jackson if the hints from this video are anything to go by!

Thing 3: A new companion! Or multiples thereof! It really can’t be that long now before an announcement is made as filming usually starts up in January for an autumn debut, so there’ll be sneakily captured location photos to contend with. Moffat previously said they had a really cool idea for a new companion, rather than bringing someone back who we’ve already met. So, no Shona, sadly… but what the heck is this “cool idea” that Moffat mentioned? A seven legged space weevil, maybe? What?!?! If it is a female or some variation thereof, then my one request to Moffat is please don’t use the word “feisty”!

Thing 4: More Tennant on TV! Broadchurch has been confirmed to return for a third outing later this year. I was hoping David Tennant would return to the role of the evil manipulative Kilgrave for another series of Marvel’s Jessica Jones, but that doesn’t look very likely now…

Thing 5: More Tennant on audio! We have a series of Big Finish Audios with David accompanied by Catherine Tate as my favourite new series companion (or should I say “mate”?), Donna Noble to look forward to. Watch them talk about this here… Go on. Click it and watch the video – it’s quite funny.

Thing 6: The return of Torchwood! Again, Big Finish come to the rescue with an all new series of adventures for Captain Jack and his merry band.

Thing 7: Obviously, there’s a lot more to come from Big Finish than just those two things, such as The Churchill Years – but those are probably the biggest for this coming year. You can review our reviews and announcements on Big Finish over here.

Thing 8: In more TV stuffs, we have Arthur Darvill (the often dead Rory Williams) as a rogeuish time travelling character on the Legends of Tomorrow TV series, a spin off from the hugely popular Arrow and The Flash series, due to debut in the US on 21st January. We wrote about the announcement here. You could read it if you like. Or not. We’re not keeping track. We also shared a teaser trailer and I’m super excited to see how the show turns out! I am also easily pleased.

Thing 9: Titan Comics will be bringing us a series of Fourth Doctor adventures starting in March and an ongoing series of Ninth Doctor adventures. Woohoo! They will also continue to serve up delicious helpings of Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth adventures

Thing 10: Continued adventures with the Twelfth Doctor in Doctor Who Adventures. Also an upcoming interview on Kasterborous with DWA artist Russ Leach!

Thing 11: Matt Smith will be appearing in several movies this year – one of which as the star! Yes, indeed, the Eleventh Doctor will be taking the lead in a movie about a virus outbreak called Patient Zero and is also co-starring as Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Alongside these movie roles he will also grace our telly box screens as Prince Phillip in royal bio drama The Crown for Netflix

Thing 12: Also one to look out for on our internet enabled viewing devices on BBC3 (as the channel is moving online only) is the new Doctor Who spinoff Class. The show will be set in Coal Hill School and aimed at the young adult audience featuring weekly alien and otherwise odd happenings. It’s unclear yet what connections there will be to the Whoniverse, so I wonder if placing it under the Doctor Who umbrella will help or hinder it? Whatever your opinion, it’s always good to have a new addition to the worlds of Doctor Who and I’ll be looking forward to seeing it! Also, it is further evidence that the BBC still has faith in the Doctor Who franchise despite scaremongering headlines about falling viewing figures…

Thing 13: It’s the 50th Anniversary this year! No, you haven’t entered a wibbly-wobbly timewarp, it’s the 50th anniversary of the first regeneration and first appearance of Patrick Troughton in October 1966. Even though this is a significant milestone, I don’t think there will be any plans to celebrate this in an official capacity. Shame, really… If Patrick Troughton hadn’t been such a superb and charismatic character actor he wouldn’t have been able to convince the viewing public that he really was still the Doctor after William Hartnell stepped down.

Thing 14: Doctor Who Magazine (I almost called it “Doctor Who Monthly” then in a brief flashback to my long distant youth!) will be celebrating it’s 500th issue this year, so no doubt there will be specials and celebrations and maybe even some shenanigans to look forward to!

Thing 15: July will see the publication of an otherwise unfinished Seventh Doctor comic strip, Evening’s Empire by Andrew Cartmel. Doctor Who Magazine only originally published episode 1 back in the 90s but Panini have resurrected the story and are publishing the whole thing as a graphic novel with new artwork by the original artist, Richard Piers Rayner

Thing 16: The sixteenth thing on the thing list is here to remind you to keep coming back to Kasterborous and to follow us on Facebook for we shall continue to bring you the best Doctor Who coverage on the internet. We might not be first, we might not be the most prolific or comprehensive, but we most certainly are the ones who will bring you the most rational and considered opinion rather than hyperbole and biased sensationalist nonsense!

The post 16 Things to Look Forward to in ’16 appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.