Friday, July 23, 2010

Cumberbatch to appear in 'Who'?




There's a lot of recurrent names in British television. The industry is naturally smaller than American television, and there's a lot of overlapping. Thus, it's no surprise that Doctor Who scribes Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have another show airing during Who's offseason. The show is Sherlock, and I'll give you three guesses as to who it's about.

The series stars Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement, The Other Boleyn Girl) and Martin Freeman (The Office (UK), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) as Holmes and Watson respectively. And since they've been doing a lot of work with Doctor Who writers on their three-hour miniseries together, it seemed obvious that we'd see crossovers in both directions.

Now, it seems, Cumberbatch is already primed to appear in the next series of Doctor Who. It won't be a one-off role either, he claims.

When asked by Digital Spy whether he'd be appearing in an episode of Doctor Who, he slyly grinned. "Not an episode of Doctor Who," he repeated coyly.

"Do you want to be the Doctor?" the interviewer pressed.

"Maybe," he replied. "We'll see. It's something that hasn't really crossed my radar much, but… not an episode."

Seems to be a bit of a mixed message, and it might just be a bit of humor on Cumberbatch's part. If he wasn't so similar in appearance to Matt Smith (he looks almost like an older version of the twenty-seven-year-old Doctor), I'd be perfectly happy with him being Doctor number twelve. But a recurring role is much more likely (if anything), and I could even see Cumberbatch in a companion slot once Rory and Amy inevitably retire from the TARDIS in the future.

The first of Sherlock's three episodes premieres in the UK on Sunday, July 25. It's unknown when the series will make the jump to the US on BBC America.

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