The BBC announced today that Matt Smith’s run as the Doctor will culminate this year in the Christmas special where he will be regenerated in his new form.

Matt Smith had this to say:

Doctor Who has been the most brilliant experience for me as an actor and a bloke, and that largely is down to the cast, crew and fans of the show. I’m incredibly grateful to all the cast and crew who work tirelessly every day, to realise all the elements of the show and deliver Doctor Who to the audience. Many of them have become good friends and I’m incredibly proud of what we have achieved over the last four years.

Having Steven Moffat as show runner write such varied, funny, mind bending and brilliant scripts has been one of the greatest and most rewarding challenges of my career. It’s been a privilege and a treat to work with Steven, he’s a good friend and will continue to shape a brilliant world for the Doctor.

The fans of Doctor Who around the world are unlike any other; they dress up, shout louder, know more about the history of the show (and speculate more about the future of the show) in a way that I’ve never seen before, your dedication is truly remarkable. Thank you so very much for supporting my incarnation of the Time Lord, number Eleven, who I might add is not done yet, I’m back for the 50th anniversary and the Christmas special!

It’s been an honour to play this part, to follow the legacy of brilliant actors, and helm the TARDIS for a spell with ‘the ginger, the nose and the impossible one’. But when ya gotta go, ya gotta go and Trenzalore calls. Thank you guys.

Showrunner Steven Moffat also had some words for us:

Every day, on every episode, in every set of rushes, Matt Smith surprised me: the way he’d turn a line, or spin on his heels, or make something funny, or out of nowhere make me cry, I just never knew what was coming next. The Doctor can be clown and hero, often at the same time, and Matt rose to both challenges magnificently. And even better than that, given the pressures of this extraordinary show, he is one of the nicest and hardest-working people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Whatever we threw at him – sometimes literally – his behaviour was always worthy of the Doctor.

But great actors always know when it’s time for the curtain call, so this Christmas prepare for your hearts to break, as we say goodbye to number Eleven. Thank you Matt – bow ties were never cooler.

Of course, this isn’t the end of the story, because now the search begins. Somewhere out there right now – all unknowing, just going about their business – is someone who’s about to become the Doctor. A life is going to change, and Doctor Who will be born all over again! After 50 years, that’s still so exciting!

I’m not completely surprised at this news, as the last Doctor, David Tennant, was only in the role for a short number of years as well, but I really expected Matt Smith to last at least another season or so.

For good or bad (and many have told me bad), I got in to Doctor Who during the Matt Smith years, and while I know that many people consider him an inferior Doctor to Tennant, I’ve really enjoyed Smith’s portrayal. I’m working on catching up and really like the last Doctor, but Smith is still who I consider to be MY portrayal of the iconic character, and I’ll be sad to see him go.

That said, we at least have the 50th anniversary to look forward to and the final moments in the Christmas episode where Smith will pass off his Sonic Screwdriver to a new actor.

But who will it be?

There has been a lot of discussion online about the next Doctor being portrayed by a woman, or possibly Eddie Izzard (thank to Vagabond Prime for that idea, which I fully endorse), but if our spies are to be believed, an actor has already been tapped and is ready to go. Now keep in mind, this is PURE rumor and speculation, but we’ve heard some murmurings that none other than Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston, will be the 12th iteration of the Time Lord.

Whether or not this will turn out to be true is up to pure conjecture, so we’ll just have to wait and see until the Christmas special, but I for one would be perfectly happy with this outcome.

Smith’s final run will begin in the 50th Anniversary special to air on BBC, November 23.

Vagabond Prime here: My 12-year-old daughter-unit, BabyGorinkaBot, is quite the Doctor Who fan. So much so, that my meager fandom  can barely orbit hers, constantly in danger of being yanked into its gravitational pull.  The Name of the Doctor has a lot going on, here’s BabyGorinkaBot with her thoughts:

 The final episode of this season of Doctor Who aired yesterday in America, and sadly we have to wait until November 23 to see more. Here is my summary of this episode, with some spoilers.

In the intro, it shows Clara falling through space, with a monologue about saving the doctor. She sees each incarnation of him, and tries to help him in some way. It goes back to regular, with Jenny and Vastra. They call a conference with Strax, which involves a weird trance. Clara is making a soufflé, or at least attempting it. She sees a piece of mail, from Vastra, and opens it up stairs, which puts her under the spell trancy thingy as well.They all meet in the trance with River, and talk about a weird omen. Jenny dies, and Strax and Vastra wake up.

Clara wakes, and sees the Doctor. They go to Trenzalore, as the ominous man told, and River is linked with Clara’s mind. They’re attacked by classy faceless dudes (that looked like the Gentlemen from Buffy in my opinion) and go into a secret catacomb entrance in River’s grave. Did I mention she was apparently buried there too? Well, she’s not. They find their way to a giant version of the TARDIS, from the future, where Vastra, Jenny (Strax healed her), and Strax are being held up by the Great Intelligence (from the snowmen, will that guy ever go away?) and some more creepy stylish dudes. They all go into the giant TARDIS, and the Doctor explains that when it kinda broke all the bigger on the inside stuff seeped out and made it all big. GI goes into the Doctor’s time stream, which is like his corpse, and reverses every good thing that ever happened. Clara realizes that before she has saved him, and goes in there too, to revert everything again. That’s why she has to save the Doctor in the intro. The Doctor comes in to save her, and they show his darkest secret, who is another Doctor. This dude is played by John Hurt, and then it’s over!

Well, that was longer than expected. I really liked this episode! I like all Doctor Who though, but Moffat left us another BEHEMOTH cliff hanger, like in Sherlock. There is much speculation already about what regeneration of the doctor he is, if he is the real 9th doctor, which makes Smith the 12th, or if he is #12. I, on the other hand, am not going to speculate on this, and just wait. One annoying thing: They didn’t even reveal what the Doctor’s name is!

I guess “porn corner” is slightly misleading in this case. I’m not talking about anything hardcore, but “Mature Items Corner” just doesn’t have swag.

Anyway. I’m not even remotely sorry that my only recent contributions to the site have been about Supernatural and porn. Let’s be fair – what else is there? Well, there’s also Doctor Who, Star Wars, video games, Game of Thrones… And now, thanks to Etsy seller Geek Kink you can combine all your BDSM needs with your favorite nerd fandom.

Geekologie originally brought this store to our attention, thank the Seven, because I have gone far too long without a light saber fanny whipper thingy. OK, full disclosure here – I am so vanilla I didn’t even know what most of this stuff is. But that’s not going to stop me from talking about it. And since this is the internet, I should probably state that just because I don’t practice or even “get” the BDSM lifestyle, I in no way shape or form judge it. Y’all can go to town, but I will take my bottom unspanked, a-thank you.

Geek Kink’s prices are presumably fair (I did not price an unadorned fanny whipper thingy, sadly), and the seller takes all kinds of custom orders. Just FYI. The items range from the clever…

To the beautifully crafted…

To the “well that’s just cool!”…

To the “Eheheheh theeeeeere it is”…

To the… Um… well that’s actually kind of interesting I mean I’m just saying…

Also included are confusing items (the Bacon Toy Bag springs to mind) and giggleworthy items (I’m sorry the MLP/Doctor Who crossover sent me into fits of laughter and tears).

Geek Kink accepts Etsy gift cards as well as credit cards, ships items for free in the US (say whaaaa? That’s awesome!), and is currently running a deal through May 1st – buy any TARDIS crop and get a TARDIS paddle or cane for free!! Is the cane to help you walk if you are sore the next day? Yeah?

This seems to be the most rumour-y, but Karen Gillan, Amy Pond of Doctor Who fame and self-professed Star Wars fan got cornered by a reporter at an event. After asking, inevitably, about her involvement with the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special (which she denied involvement in), he set his sights to Star Wars, asking if she would take a part in the new trilogy.

To which she responded in the most vaguely positive way she could:

“Actually,” Gillan told The HypeMachine, “I’m not sure how much I can say about that at this point or not. I’m in talks, but the official word is no comment, I think.”

I can’t tell what part EU fans are going to assume she’d be playing first: Mara Jade or Jaina Solo.

I’m still doubtful that we’re getting any EU characters in the sequel trilogy, but I’ll admit, if they brought Karen Gillan in to play either of those parts I’d be extremely happy.

She did fantastic work on Doctor Who and is as adorable as they come, I think Star Wars fans would accept her in the fandom with open arms. And it wouldn’t be the first Doctor Who/Star Wars cross over, either. Julian “General Veers” Glover was in an excellent arc of episodes as a badguy facing off against Tom Baker and David Tenant, the 10th Doctor himself, played a droid on The Clone Wars.

And with JJ Abrams at the helm, anything is possible.

Star Wars: Episode VII hits movie theatre screens in 2015.

Readers of Big Shiny Robot! will hit their screens (or slap their foreheads) when they realize the date of this post.

It’s official.

Last seen as the Doctor on January 1st 2010, this will be the first time Tennant has reprised his role as the Tenth Doctor.  During his reign as the Time Lord, Tennant appeared in three series as well as several specials.  He was first revealed as the Doctor in the 2005 series finale, ‘The Parting of the Ways’.

Meanwhile Billie Piper, who played companion Rose Tyler for two series following the reboot in 2005, will appear in the show for the first time since featuring in Tennant’s last episode, ‘The End of Time’ in 2010.

There’s not much more to add, other than a lot of incoherent fangirl noises. Neither, honestly, have been my favorite doctor or companion (Nine and Donna, for the record), but that doesn’t even remotely matter when this extravaganza is shaping up to be such an inclusive story. Doctors and companions are like pie – no such thing as “bad,” just “less awesome.”

Also announced today – John Hurt will be joining in the 3D celebration. No news as to a character, but who is betting on “villain”? Me. I am.

Filming for the special starts next week, so there might not be any more bombshells as far as casting and news. Now it’s just a game of “how long until December?”

Check out some Whovian fan art here, and don’t forget to tune in to the premiere tonight on BBC America at 8pm EST.

Illustrator Karen Hallion has combined two of my favorite ‘verses into one magical fairy tale that, for those of us who might still be waiting on our Hogwart’s letter, is all too well a fit. Below are a few favorites, but click here for Ms Hallion’s deviantart page to sample her exemplary nerdery. Which princess do you think would make the best companion?

My vote is for Belle, by the way.

Make sure you click through – Karen Hallion’s art is fantastic, and her titles for these pieces are just as clever as the art.

Are you sick of not knowing why the guy with the most annoying text alert in the world keeps commanding you to not blink? Or maybe the internet has finally gotten to you and you’re ready to start watching Doctor Who but are worried you won’t know what’s going on? Well, as a long time fan I can tell you that you won’t know what’s going on regardless, but that’s actually part of the fun.

At any rate, the bottom leg of series seven returns to BBC America tomorrow night. Showrunner Stephen Moffat recently said that the beauty of the show is that you can join in at any point and still enjoy the ride, and while I would mostly agree with that, you should still check out this amazing infograph by Kari Pederson. It  can fill in any of the blanks you might need to know.

Below are some excerpts from the graph, but at the link above you can zoom and download a pdf.

OK I have to admit that I never knew Douglas Adams was involved with Doctor Who.

And of coooourse Tennant was a fan of the show.

Tomorrow at 8pm EST on BBC America you can join the 11th Doctor on his quest to solve the mystery of Clara Oswin Oswald in “The Bells of St John.”

UUUUGH, two more weeks! I feel like a seven year old on December 11th. This is not a complaint. It’s nice to feel like a seven year old. Anyway, prepare yourselves for 41 seconds of awesome:

The big bads looks incredible, and rumor has it that Moffat is going to make us scared of wi-fi this season. And of course there’s the Mystery of Clara. There is a super fun and not entirely unplausible theory circulating on tumblr that Clara is the daughter of the Doctor and River. What say you? Leave your theories, no matter how crackpot, in the comments below.

Doctor Who series 7.2 premieres on March 30 at 8pm EST on BBCAmerica!

It took me about one minute in to get goosebumpy, and at 1:23 I actually misted up a bit.

There’s really not much else to say. Except maybe that I’ve never wished for an entire year to fly by as quickly as I will the rest of this year.

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail I’m sure many of you got as well. Think Geek sent out one of their many product announcements packed full of Doctory goodness. What caught my eye this time around was the blind boxed vinyl figured from Titan. I have been buying Kid Robot blind boxed figures for a while now, Arse-bot has a solid addiction to them as well, so I figured it was my duty to check out these Doctor Who figures.

I ended up getting a variant version of the TARDIS so I’m not sure how the actual figures are. The TARDIS can’t really have articulation or anything of the sort. The painting is a bit sloppy, worse than I’ve seen on any of my Kid Robot figures. The green on the light overlaps and the windows are a bit crooked. It isn’t enough to bother me but in comparison to the other stuff on my desk the quality is much lower and the price is the same.

There are , 2 doctors, 5 Daleks, 2 Cybermen, an Ood, Judon, Silurian, Silence and the TARDIS. There are also 4 limited figures like the variant TARDIS I received. They are $9.99 over at Think Geek so if you love Doctor Who and vinyl give em a shot. I wasn’t overly impressed but I wasn’t disappointed either. My TARDIS fits right in on my desk full of vinyls.