Doctor Who

Space – the final frontier? Well, there's no final frontier when you’re talking about Doctor Who, but the perennial BBC1 sci-fi series lands amid the 1960s space race in the first episodes of the new 13-part series.

Episodes one and two feature President Nixon, a mysterious spaceman, the FBI and Neil Amstrong's foot (!) and the cast and crew descended on Utah to film Doctor Who for the first time ever in the United States.

“The landscape was incredible,” says Doctor Who star Matt Smith. “And I think being in America, filming in that terrain, has definitely added a sense of scale and a filmic quality to this series.”

Doctor Who’s modern mastermind Steven Moffat says there are ‘major mysteries from the very off... But at the same time the over-arching plot will be a bigger player this year.”

And the terrors? Let’s not forget the other stars of the series. “They’re... scary. Very scary,” says Steven. “And, ohh, I don’t want to say more – there’s the Silence in 1 and 2, the Siren, in episode 3, the Gangers in 5 and 6, all these are more than just freaky costumes and masks; there are scary ideas here. And just wait till you meet Idris in episode 4.”

Adding lustre and intrigue to the regular cast of Matt, Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Rory Williams (Arthur Davill) and Alex Kingston (River Song) are guest stars Hugh Bonneville, supermodel Lily Cole, Suranne Jones and Ashes to Ashes’ Marshall Lancaster.

The Doctor in a Stetson, Amy and Rory as a married couple, the return of River Song, ever more terrifying foes – what’s not to love about the approach of a new series of TV’s iconic inter-galactic man of mystery?

The first seven episodes of Doctor Who screen on BBC1 from Saturday, April 23. It will then break until the autumn, when the final six episodes of the series will be shown.