This year’s Comic-Con convention in San Diego is well underway, and David Tennant, Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Euros Lyn all took part in a Doctor Who panel earlier today, discussing everything from the Tenth Doctor’s demise to John Barrowman’s accent to Billie Piper’s breasts (no, really…). But while there was no movie announcement, there were still lots of things uncovered to discuss, and WhovianNet has all the coverage for you right here!

The panel kicked off at around 10:00AM PT (that’s 6PM for those of us in the UK), with a preview of this year’s eagerly-anticipated Christmas specials; a two-parter which will mark the end of David Tennant’s tenure as the Tenth Doctor. The trailer featured a mash-up of new clips from the episodes, including shots of Catherine Tate in role as Donna Noble, Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott, and a mysterious figure wearing a black hood… And as the voice of Timothy Dalton - who will also be appearing in the episode - declared “His name is the Master…”, John Simm appeared on screen, looking just as chilling as he did way back in Series 3, but this time with blond hair. The final caption read ”The end of time. Christmas 2009.” Episode title perhaps? Let the speculation commence!

After that, the cast and crew discussed various aspects of the show, but the topic of conversation was, naturally, centered around the final episodes, which, according to Director Euros, made Murray Gold start ”sobbing uncontrollably” when he came to compose the score for the last 20 minutes. The chief editor of the Guinness World Records was also on hand to present Russell with a special plaque to commemorate the fact that Doctor Who is now not only the longest running sci-fi programme of all time, but also the most successful, to which the outgoing showrunner joked that he felt “a Comic-Con war coming on”.

Up next - the Q&A session, which gave members of the audience the chance to ask the panel their very own quick fire questions. When asked if he would ever consider returning to the role for a charity event, David said, “Who knows? The dust has to settle. But it’s the 50th anniversary in 2013, isn’t it?”, and the actor went on to confirm that he currently has no plans to return to the show as the ‘Other Doctor’ created at the end of Journey’s End. Russell also confirmed that Alexandra Moen will be back as Lucy Saxon in the finale.

Meanwhile, it was confirmed that the SJA story featuring the Tenth Doctor is called The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, and the two-parter will transmit as part of the programme’s third series on BBC One this Autumn. In other spin off news, Russell touched upon the likelyhood of Torchwood returning for a fourth series, and, while he’s sure it will come back in some shape or form, he can’t give a definite answer yet because he doesn’t know what the future holds for the programme.

Finally, the panel ended with another preview, this time of the upcoming special, The Waters of Mars. The trailer included various clips from the episode, including the Doctor saying, “Certain moments in time are fixed. This place on Mars, what happens here, must always happen.”

All in all, an eventful day for Whovians, and this is just a reminder that, although we’re in the middle of the dreaded gap year, we’ve still got plenty to look forward to over the coming months and there are definitely very good times ahead! Stick with us for the latest!

Final Specials, Miscellaneous