More info from BBC America about the air dates of the final David Tennant Doctor Who episodes.  Note, the five-disc set containing all the specials comes out on my birthday, Groundhog Day 2010.

PRESS RELEASE

The finale to the era of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, is one of the most eagerly anticipated adventures in the history of Doctor Who. As previously announced, the next special, Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars premieres Saturday December 19, 9:00pm ET/PT on BBC AMERICA. The final two specials, Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One and Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two, will premiere over the holiday season starting December 26 on BBC AMERICA. Guest stars John Simm, Timothy Dalton, Catherine Tate, Lindsay Duncan and Bernard Cribbins join Tennant on his final journey. Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One premieres Saturday December 26, 9:00pm ET/PT on BBC AMERICA. The End of Time, Part Two premiere date will be announced very soon.

BBCAmerica.com/DoctorWho has exclusive Doctor Who clips including a sneak peek to The Waters of Mars, which The Times says is “a big-budget, knock-yer-socks-off blockbuster” and the Guardian exclaimed “it’s a belter, a watery nightmare – scary, moving, relevant, believable.”

The site also has a new world premiere clip from The End of Time, Part One, with never-before seen footage that will keep fans all over the globe wondering what’s in store for the Doctor.

This slick re-imagination of Doctor Who, created by Russell T Davies (Torchwood, Queer as Folk), puts a fresh spin on the adventures of the iconic Time Lord and his feisty companions – who travel across the universe to protect Earth from dangerous aliens and terrifying monsters. Davies and Tennant are passing the baton to Steven Moffat and actor Matt Smith, who will play the Eleventh Doctor in a new season of the re-imagined series premiering in 2010 on BBC AMERICA.

The BBC will release The Waters of Mars and The End of Time, Part One and Part Two on DVD and Blu-ray, Tuesday, February 2, 2010. A 5-disc set, Doctor Who: Specials Collection, which includes The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, Waters of Mars, The End of Time, Part One and Part Two and a 16-page booklet with an introduction written by David Tennant, hits stores the same day.

Tennant’s time-traveling Doctor finds himself in 1851 on Christmas Eve. It’s there he encounters someone else calling himself “The Doctor.” The Doctor is a Time Lord who regenerates into different appearances periodically, often when injured. So, he presumes this man, who acts very similarly to The Doctor himself, must be the “Next Doctor.” But the Next Doctor, played by David Morrissey, has gaps in his memory, and he claims not to recognize The Doctor.

Still, there are Cybermen afoot in 1851 London, and it’s up to the Doctors to put a stop to their plot while they try to figure out what’s caused the Next Doctor’s memory problems. The Next Doctor has been investigating strange murders, which he believes the Cybermen have committed. The Cybermen are a race of cyborgs that have often come in conflict with The Doctor. Here, they’re attempting to cause the rise of a Cyber King, with the aid of Miss Hartigan (Dervla Kirwan), a woman who rails against Victorian-era mores.

The show crackles along during the first half, as the mystery of the Next Doctor is explored. Once the mystery is solved, the final conflict with the Cybermen is anticlimactic. Overall, it’s fun but nonessential.

No behind-the-scenes extras on this disc, but there is the hourlong “Doctor Who at the Proms,” featuring the music of “Doctor Who” at Albert Hall, with appearances from the show’s stars.

— Matthew Price
From Friday’s The Oklahoman

Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead

There’s soon to be a new Doctor in the house, but fans can celebrate one of the final adventures of David Tennant’s Doctor Who with “Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead.”

The first of four Doctor Who upcoming DVD specials featuring Tennant as the 10th Doctor will be released July 28. “Doctor Who” features a 900-year-old human-looking alien who can travel through time and space, righting wrongs and saving the innocent.

Julie Gardner

Julie Gardner, who executive-produced “Doctor Who” until earlier this year, talked about the final days of the current Doctor, and the 2005 revamp that put the long-running British sci-fi program back on the map.

“‘Planet of the Dead’ is the last big adventure romp,” Gardner said. “It’s a great chase and a great kind of survivor story.”

In “Planet of the Dead,” the Doctor is on a bus that travels through a rip in space that deposits the bus and its passengers on a faraway, dangerous planet. He’s teamed with a jewel thief, played by Michelle Ryan, to figure out a way to safely return the bus through the rift.

Gardner says she thinks “Doctor Who” caught on in the U.K. again in 2005 as people were hungry for family drama.

“We were able to reach a family audience. A lot of research said the family is disjointed and people aren’t watching together – ‘Doctor Who’ in the U.K. proves that not to be the case,” Gardner said. “It’s got to be intelligent and witty and fun and engaging, and not always easy.”

Gardner has now passed the torch on “Doctor Who,” much as the Doctor himself is about to do. (The next Doctor will be played by Matt Smith, 26. Gardner works in Los Angeles at BBC America. She thinks change is key for “Doctor Who’s” appeal.

“It’s a show that, written into its very DNA, is regeneration,” she said. “I think it needs new vision every four, five, six years. Because as a show that has such a robust format, you could look at ‘Doctor Who’ and say this could still be on air in 20, 25 years. But I think in order to do that, it needs to be given the space to reinvent itself.”

By Matthew Price
From Tuesday’s The Oklahoman