‘Doctor Who’ thing of the day: seventh season a go, with Matt Smith (but maybe not till 2013?)

"The new [season order] is a big commitment," a BBC spokesman said, according to The Guardian. "Not many other shows have such a commitment so far in advance. We do not know yet how many will air in 2012."

Matt Smith will definitely be back, however, so there’s that. But he might have some new companions. From Dark Horizons:

Despite Smith's return, it's now looking highly likely that neither Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) or Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) will be joining him. The longest regular run for a companion since the show's return in 2005 has been two seasons, their run would match that and doesn't preclude them returning as guest stars like many former companions did in the Russell T. Davies era.

Arthur Darvill has been cast in Shakespeare's Globe production of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus from later this month through to October, right during the time of seventh season filming which commences next month. An interview with The London Evening Standard had Darvill talking about his Rory role in the past tense.

Gillan did the same thing when talking about her role of Jean Shrimpton in the upcoming BBC4 drama "We’ll Take Manhattan". Gillan says "I have just literally gone from Doctor Who to that so I haven’t had a chance to sit and have a think. I actually would really like to go home to Scotland for a little while and reflect on what has happened and then decide what my next move is, but I don’t know what that is yet."

I’d be fine with some new companions. The TARDIS is no place for Amy and Rory to be raising their baby anyway.

About the scheduling being up in the air, here’s what Steven Moffat had to say, to SFX:

Okay, here it is – the best answer you can have. I don’t know. If I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. When I DO know, what I know will change, so I won’t really know then either. And then it will change again, so I still won’t really know. And if, secretly, I’d really known all along, I’d still be telling you I don’t know, because everything I said I knew, could be wrong, so I’d never really have known in the first place.

Quantum security – I don’t know AND it’s a secret.

Heh. That’s some blather worthy of the Doctor himself...

(If you stumble across a cool Doctor Who thing, feel free to email me with a link.)