Ben Miller is set to star as a villain in a Doctor Who episode penned by Mark Gatiss. It will be the actor’s first role on the British juggernaut, which returns later this year.

“As a committed Whovian, I cannot believe my luck in joining the Twelfth Doctor for one of his inaugural adventures,” Miller said. “My only worry is that they’ll make me leave the set when I’m not filming.”

Rumors are swirling that Miller may be playing the Sheriff of Nottingham, or some Whovian iteration of the famous baddie. Last week, Tom Riley was cast in an upcoming Doctor Who episode and many are assuming he will be playing Robin Hood. The same rumors are naming other another recently announced guest star, Ian Hallard, as playing merry man, Alan-A-Dale.

For now, BBC America has not confirmed any role for Miller, except as a “storming villain” to go against Peter Capaldi’s Doctor. Best known for being one half of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller, the actor was recently seen in BBC’s Death in Paradise as DI Richard Poole. Interestingly, Miller’s comedic partner, Alexander Armstrong, already had a stint on Doctor Who, appearing in the 2011 Christmas Special as Reg Arwell.

The new era of Doctor Who officially began today as Peter Capaldi stepped aboard the TARDIS full-time. Cameras rolled on the first episodes of season 8 and BBC America passed along the above photo along with a few words from the new Doctor as well as Lead Writer Steven Moffat.

Joining Capaldi is Jenna Coleman, who returns as companion Clara Oswald. Note that this photo does not show the Doctor in his new costume. That will be revealed at a later date. Expect all kinds of news and photos from the new season throughout the year.

Christmas started early today as the BBC released a hand full of images and promotional art from the Doctor Who Christmas Special episode The Time of the Doctor. As viewers of the show are aware, this episode marks the last for Matt Smith as his Doctor will be seen to regenerate into Peter Capaldi’s incarnation at the end, foreshadowed by the tagline “A Change Is Going To Come…”. There is nothing spoilery in the below images so feel free to view them without ruining the story.

The Time of the Doctor is written by Steven Moffat and directed by Jamie Payne. Jenna Coleman returns as companion Clara Oswald. Also starring are Mark Brighton, Sonita Henry, Orla Brady, James Buller, Tom Gibbons, Shelia Reid, Jack Hollington, Rob Jarvis and Tessa Peake-Jones.

It will air on the BBC in England and BBC America in the States on Christmas Day.

Everyone is just catching their breath after the big Doctor Who 50th Anniversary celebrations, but the BBC remind us that there is more to come. On Christmas Day the annual, now-traditional special episode will air and this one will be dramatically more special than the previous years.

“The Time of the Doctor” as it is now titled will see current Doctor Matt Smith saying goodbye to the role he has occupied since the first day of 2010. As the episode closes we will see the eleventh (Twelfth? Thirteenth?) Doctor regenerate yet again and Peter Capaldi will assume the part.

Recent interviews with showrunner Steven Moffat seem to hint that the previously established twelve regeneration limit will come to head as we now know that there was a previously unknown regeneration in the form of John Hurt’s “War Doctor” and it appear that the “diverted regeneration energy” brouhaha from 2008’s “Journey’s End” still decreases the count by one.

However it plays out, we only have a few short weeks until “The Time of the Doctor” and the answers to some long-standing questions. In the meantime, check out the trailer below and look for all the hidden Easter Eggs in the official poster above.

The end of Eleven is coming this year. In an official release, the BBC has announced that Matt Smith will be leaving Doctor Who in this year’s Christmas special.

In a statement released by the BBC, Smith says:

“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 realize 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 showrunner 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.

Neil Gaiman is a geek god. He’s the author of several award winning books and comics including the series The Sandman and novel American Gods. He’s a Doctor Who fan and if he could’ve traveled with any incarnation of the Doctor, it would’ve been Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor.

“Doctor Who was the first mythology that I ever knew,” he said.

Tonight Gaiman returns with Nightmare in Silver, the second episode he’s penned for the BBC America show about all of time and space. In Nightmare, the Doctor, Clara (Jenna Louise-Coleman), Artie and Angie arrive at Hedgewick’s World of Worlds, once the greatest theme park in the galaxy but now home to strange creatures and a terrifying new breed of Cybermen.

The Cybermen are not only one of the Doctor’s greatest enemies but one of Gaiman’s greatest passions. His first Doctor Who experience was seeing the fourth season episode, Moonbase, as a child. Swift and silent Cybermen were at the center of the episode and those villains stuck with Gaiman.

“Doctor Who is the most exhaustingly planned show on earth.” So says the show’s lead writer and executive producer, Steven Moffat, in an interview today. Moffat admits that he encounters few surprises when putting together the show that encompasses all of time and space but there are plenty of surprises for the audience.

The second part of season 7 begins with The Bells of Saint John, which will kick off Jenna-Louise Coleman’s run as the Eleventh Doctor’s (Matt Smith) newest companion. Speaking about Coleman, Moffat said Clara brings a wit and unimpressed quality to the TARDIS and the Time Lord that makes the Doctor work harder to be impressive. “They have enough in common and yet enough sharp contrast,” said Moffat, referring both to the Doctor and Clara as well as Smith and Coleman.

Adding to the uniqueness of Clara is that the Doctor has already met two other versions of his new companion. Regarding whether Clara will ever remember or learn about those other encounters, Moffat jokingly replied, “I would know the answer to that question and certainly won’t give it to you.”

What could be better than a third season of the BBC’s awesome Sherlock series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as a modern-day Holmes and Watson? Why, a fourth season of course.

That’s right, during and interview with UK’s Radio Times today, Cumberbatch said he and co-star Freeman have agreed to do two seasons after Season 2.

“We’ve agreed to two more series but I could get into trouble for saying that,” Cumberbatch said during the interview. “All I know at the moment is I’m doing these three and another three.” Which, translated to how we do series here in the U.S. means he’s currently filming season three of three episodes and then would go on to do a fourth season of three episodes.

He also said in the interview that he and Freeman would like to do more seasons, but as always it depends on their schedules and that of co-creator Steven Moffat, who also runs the BBC’s Doctor Who.

So yeah, that’s pretty cool. We could all use more seasons of this excellent show. And more Cumberbatch and Freeman isn’t a bad thing either.

Look for season three of Sherlock to hit the U.S. later this year.

Geronimo! BBC America has released images from the first four episodes of the second half of season seven for the show that takes viewers through all of time and space. The pictures show not only Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor but also Jenna-Louise Coleman’s companion Clara and guest stars Dougray Scott and Jessica Raine. Warning! Spoilers may follow!

Doctor Who returns with the thriller episode, The Bells of St. John, which introduces a new enemy known as the Spoonheads. Seven more episodes are set to finish out the 7^th season of the timey whimey show. Since this is Doctor Who’s 50^th anniversary we can expect some surprises.

In a press release from BBC America, lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat said: “It’s the 50th year of Doctor Who and look what’s going on! We’re up in the sky and under the sea! We’re running round the rings of an alien world and then a haunted house. There’s new Cybermen, new Ice Warriors and a never before attempted journey to the centre of the TARDIS. And in the finale, the Doctor’s greatest secret will at last be revealed!  If this wasn’t already our most exciting year it would be anyway!”

Catch Doctor Who when it returns on March 30 8 p.m. ET on BBC America.

The recent five episode run to kick off the seventh season of Doctor Who ended with the bittersweet send off of the Ponds. The second longest running companions for the Doctor in the new run, and the thus far only traveling mates of the Eleventh Doctor, the Ponds were fan favorites whose presence on the show will be missed.

That last paragraph contained no spoilers, as it was well publicized that they would be ending their run in the 5th episode of this current season. Going forward there will be spoilers for that episode, so if you somehow missed how the Ponds met their ends you might want to bookmark this story and come back once you watched the episode.

Some how the great Steven Moffat managed to essentially kill these two beloved characters while at the same time giving them the happiest ending possible. Even though they were trapped in the past during a time the Doctor is unable to ever visit (which were sure will be retconned sooner rather than later), they were both given full, seemingly normal lives to live together for decades and decades. The love story of Amy and Rory Williams, which has seen their love forged over thousands of years, over several deaths and over a parallel lifetime finally settles long enough to let them live out the rest of their days in loving peace.

That is where the show left us, a sucker punch to the gut that had the sweetest of aftertastes. However, the Doctor Who writing crew is not one to leave well enough alone, and that has been proven once again in this newly released story board animation of an unfilmed coda scene to that episode.

Check it out after the jump.