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ABC to air new Doctor Who special live

The next Doctor will be revealed Live to Australia at 4am AEST Monday morning on ABC1.

2013-08-03_1046ABC1 has now confirmed it will simulcast the BBC special in which the next Doctor will be exclusively revealed to the world, Live to Australia.

Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor will air this Monday August 5 at 4am EST (3.30am SA & NT, WA 2am).

The half-hour show will also be available to watch on iview throughout Monday, and replayed at 8.30pm Monday evening on ABC2.

Brendan Dahill, Controller ABC1 says: “We are extremely excited to be able to reveal the highly anticipated next Doctor to Australia as the breaking news happens live, direct from the UK – a first for the ABC.”

Regarded as one of the most hotly contested roles in British television, the 12th Doctor will be unveiled during their first ever interview, in front of a live studio audience set against the backdrop of a swirling vortex, amongst Daleks and the TARDIS.

The special will also include live special guests, Doctors old and new, as well as companions and celebrity fans, and will feature clips and moments from across the show’s 50 year history.

Current Doctor Matt Smith and lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat will both give interviews about one of the biggest roles in TV and set out just what it takes to be the Doctor.

Steven Moffat said: “The decision is made and the time has come to reveal who’s taking over the TARDIS. For the last of the Time Lords, the clock is striking twelve.”

23 Responses

  1. @phatBoy I hope you haven’t been watching the news, they’ve had reports about it from 6am onwards, the Today show played the opening credits at the start of the show, both Twitter and Facebook have exploded. Can’t blame David for reporting the news.

  2. by ‘aired’, you mean… the tv program has aired or the news has aired?

    i think you can please both sides by having the story but not revealing information until you click on the story, but it’s your website, just my feedback!

    1. Doctor Who Live aired this morning. But from where I sit you have to look at the wider implications of holding off this kind of info. It means I can never file “Julie wins MasterChef” or “Person X wins Reality show Y” or “Denmark wins Eurovision.” Yet all other media can? Then I have to come up with other photos, other excerpts for the front of the site. It impacts on SEO and Google results because key words are absent. So again the easiest rule to avoid all confusion is:

      Not aired = Spoiler.
      Aired = News.

  3. gahh,.. i know you hate discussions about what constitutes a spoiler.. but have been trying to avoid this one and log on to tvtonight and it’s right there on the front page! maybe the title could have been “new doctor revealed” and you have to click through to see the details..

    1. It’s not a Spoiler when it has aired. It’s all over the net, so it makes no sense for a dedicated TV site to hold off once it has aired. What date would you deem acceptable for me to have put Capaldi on the front? You will soon see how that answer never pleases anybody, so a clear line in the sand avoids confusion for all, thanks.

    1. I was planning to rise a little later but I awoke at about 4:20 so I got up, saw Capaldi announced in the last 5 minutes, blogged it and went back to sleep! Even in my sleep my stupid body clock was alert to breaking news, gawd….

  4. Just watched it Live at 4.00am on ABC 1.
    It was GR8.
    I was so excited like a kid at Christmas.
    I may be 41 but just for half an hour I was 14 again.
    Thankyou ABC 1 for airing it Live from the BBC.
    🙂

    GR8 Choice For The New Dr 🙂

  5. @hotgoat, there will always be a flame war going, it happened during Matt Smith’s announcement as The Doctor, it happened during Jenna Coleman, Karen Gillan, Catherine Tate, Freema Agyeman and Billie Pipper’s announcements as the companions, it probably happened from 1963 to 1996 when every actor was announced to be The Doctor and it will happen over and over and over.

    Sorry for the long comment David.

  6. The actor’s name would have leaked before airing. Besides, I’m still betting on Smith regenerating at the end of the 50th special and not the Christmas special, and then won’t our minds be blown? What are the odds the Christmas special is filmed all in studio and the BBC are able to pull off the biggest stunt ever in TV history with a shock regeneration *before* we’re expecting it.

  7. Oh goodie! I was getting up at 5am for work anyway. What’s one hour earlier? I’m going to feel shattered during the day, but seeing this at the same time as the UK is pretty cool. I’m sure we’re all going to be pleasantly surprised like the last 3 Doctors.

  8. Does everything have to be previewed these days, why not leave this as a surprise for when the episode airs. Now there will be a 3 month flame war on why this actor is going to be good or bad.

    1. It’s Doctor Who and it has 50 years of fan-dom. BBC can either take control of the conversation and announce it themselves, or they can try to keep it under wraps and watch it leak without them. I think it’s the right move.

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