There are plenty of ways to pass the remaining days until the new series of Doctor Who arrives on September the 1st. You could Sellotape pictures of your favourite Sontarans into eight holes of an old advent calendar, incrementally burn your way down a candle in the shape of Matt Smith’s chin, or develop a menu of Who-themed snacks for opening night (nOodles, Dalek bread, Dav-rosti, Galli-Fray Bentos Steak & Kidney pies etc). The possibilities are endless.
Helpfully, the BBC has come up with its own suggestion and seeing as it only involves the one bad pun, it’s far superior to any of ours. Their idea? Pond Life, a new five-part mini-series spin-off focusing on the lives of Amy and Rory, with one webisode available every day next week at midday.
The new mini-episodes will be available to watch on the official Doctor Who website (and hopefully, here too) and BBC One YouTube Channel between Monday the 27th and Friday the 31st of August, and then again in one big lump (or omnibus, for fans of Latin) available on the BBC’s Red Button prior to the series opener on September the 1st.
We’ll let Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill explain further:
UPDATE: Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner introduce their reasons for producing Pond Life:
The miniseries’ scripts come courtesy of Torchwood’s Chris Chibnall, who, as we know, has also penned episodes two and four in the forthcoming Who series, Dinosaurs On A Spaceship and The Power Of Three. Chibnall explains:
“Pond Life provides us with a lovely opportunity to catch-up with Amy and Rory since we saw them at the end of the last series. It opens with the Ponds at home and gives us an insight in to just what happens when the Doctor drops in and out of their lives. Travelling with the Doctor is one of the greatest things you can do, but it's fun to spend a few moments looking at the chaos he can also bring.”
Saul Metzstein (who’s also directed four of the new Who episodes: Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, A Town Called Mercy, The Crimson Horror and the as-yet untitled episode 7.6) is behind the camera on the webisodes, which will feature Matt Smith alongside Gillan and Darvill, as well as “…some unexpected surprises!”, according to the press release.
Who executive producer Caroline Skinner describes the story as “...beautiful, heartfelt and wickedly funny,” “…a truly heart-warming piece about our best-loved companions and their madcap relationship with their raggedy Doctor.”
As fans are well aware, Pond Life is the latest in a long history of Doctor Who spin-offs, most notably TV's Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, but also a number of novels, comics, Big Finish's long-running series of audio plays, the BBC 7 radio stories, the P.R.O.B.E VHS adventures, animated CBBC show The Infinite Quest, and recently, the non-BBC K-9 live action/CGI children’s series.
And those are just the spin-offs that made it on air, read about those that didn’t, here.
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