The line to get into the 1pm Doctor Who panel began outside Hall H around 8pm the night before. If you wanted to get a place in the 6500 seat auditorium, you had to get there early, very early. By the time the panel was about to begin, this audience was so excited they started clapping out the rhythm of the Master’s drums and once Moffat and the cast got on stage there was an extremely loud standing ovation.
The panel was producers Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner, as well as the Doctor (Matt Smith) and the Ponds (Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill.)
It’s well known that Amy and Rory Pond will be leaving the show in a meeting with the Weeping Angels half way through this season, so in a way this was a Comic Con good-bye to them. They showed the extremely moving clip from “The Girl Who Waited” where Amy is telling Rory why he needs to leave her while she is outside the TARDIS and he is inside. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Karen spoke of her leaving the show and said she cried for two weeks straight after she left. But don’t worry you’ll see more of both her and Arthur as they have many projects coming up. The most exciting for Who fans is probably “Broadchurch” in which Arthur will be working with David Tennant. It is also written by Who writer, Chris Chibnall.
They all spoke a lot about how one of the main themes of Doctor Who is the idea of regeneration and change. That it’s about learning to love characters and learning that we have to let them go.
…
A few things I learned at this panel:
1. When Matt started the show he was given a handbook describing all the various areas of the TARDIS, what they were for, and what all the buttons and levers are for. How much do you want to own this handbook?
2. Only Moffat knows what the Doctor’s name is and why we can’t know it. He will not tell us why.
3. Moffat won’t say if he is planning on an episode with multiple Doctors or not.
4. Moffat said of River Song, “You can’t trust that woman.”
5. The alliance of evil that got together at the Pandorica will not reconvene, according to Moffat.
6. Both Karen and Matt’s favorite guest character on the show was Vincent van Gogh (can you blame them?) Karen and Arthur’s favorite costumes were the Kiss-a-Gram and Centurion respectively (again, duh!)
7. Karen is an amazing bowler even though she has never bowled before this week and has terrible form that involves yelping when she releases the ball.
8. All the cast members have taken souvenirs from the TARDIS. David Tennant kept his sonic screwdriver.
Moffat promises lots of variety in the upcoming series. Westerns, tragedy, Weeping Angels, dinosaurs, Daleks, lots and lots of Daleks.
