No time’s too early for a new Time Lord as fans await next Doctor Who with Peter Capaldi
THE AUSTRALIAN AUGUST 22, 2014

NORMALLY, a 4.50am TV appointment with your sofa means a global sporting event.

But for thousands of fanatical Australians this Sunday, alarm clocks will be beeping in time for 4.50am AEST. Not for the World Cup, but for the science-fiction TV equivalent.

Doctor Who has regenerated again, and the ABC has decided fans cannot wait for the first adventure of Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor, and will screen the episode at the exact time it broadcasts in Britain.

TIME LORD TIMELINE: Search our interactive history of Doctor Who

The feature-length drama is a rip-roaring adventure, with dinosaurs invading Victorian London and a series of mysterious murders.

Central to proceedings is companion Clara, played by Jenna Coleman, struggling to come to terms with an older, more intense Doctor.

But Coleman denies that she had to break the new Doctor in. “Well I didn’t, I didn’t need to. Even on the regeneration scene we did, Peter came in with loads of ideas and threw so many different ideas at the wall.

“That was the scene where I just had to stand there and be shocked and I was really excited at the possibilities and the different directions that we could go.”

The pair were in Sydney last week as part of a global promotional tour that took them to Europe, Asia, the US and South America — and some of the fan encounters were intense.

“Everyone’s asking you ‘what’s the Doctor going to be like’ and the only people who know are us and we don’t even have any plans for it,” Capaldi said.

Read big fan Stephen Brook’s take on the new Doctor in Review in The Weekend Australian tomorrow.