Doctor On Call: Steven Moffat Talks "Doctor Who"

Comic-Con kicked off with a bang this year, courtesy of a little British Invasion in the form of panels for UK series Doctor Who and Torchwood. Just don't ask writer/producer Steven Moffat if he enjoyed traveling over for the annual geek fest. The Coupling and Jekyll creator was apparently detained and questioned for about twenty minutes when he arrived in the States. Ouch.

Moffat and producer Julie Gardner took to the stage during the first ever Doctor Who event at Comic-Con, though sadly executive producer Russell T. Davies was a no-show as he never actually boarded his flight; Davies is in Cardiff working on Torchwood.

While Moffat--the inbound head writer of some of my very personal favorite Doctor Who episodes including "Blink," "The Empty Child," "Girl in the Fireplace," and "Silence in the Library"--was exceptionally discrete about revealing future plot points ("I’m not telling you" seemed to be a recurring answer), we did get to see a gorgeous 90-second trailer for the 2008 Christmas Special, which features the return of the Cybermen to the series.

And I cannot describe the cheer that erupted from the crowds during a clip package that showcased scenes from all of the episodes of Doctor Who that Moffat has scripted to date... save "The Empty Child," an omission which seemed to irk Moffat to no end.

While I was hoping for some information about the Doctor's companion for the upcoming Season Five (I'm still holding out hope for Sally Sparrow), Moffat was playing his cards very close to the vest, having started to write the new season's first episode whilst flying over the Atlantic.

We did learn, however, that just because River Song (Alex Kingston) recognized the Doctor during the recent two-parter "Quiet in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead," doesn't mean that she actually will marry this incarnation of the Doctor (David Tennant) and may have recognized some essential quality of the Doctor to realize that he would someday be the man she would marry. (Sorry, time travel and its inherent "timey-wimey, wibbledy-wobbledy"-ness is so confusing.)

Will Neil Gaiman write an episode of Doctor Who, as many of us have hoped? "That would be nice," said Moffat noncommittally.

But those of you hoping for Tennant to run into an older incarnation of the Doctor (as he did in the Children in Need sketch), don't hold your breaths. Moffat believes that the novelty of having the Doctor run the same adventure at two points during his life at the same time would quickly wear thin after about five minutes. That said, never say never.

Stay tuned.

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

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What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season ...

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Comics "Authority" Warren Ellis to Pen Original Series for AMC Network

I was initially surprised when AMC announced late last year that they intended to enter into the original programming route, particularly scripted series. But my jaw dropped last night when I learned who was developing a show with the network: British writer Warren Ellis, better known to many as a god among comic writers. (Full disclosure: Yes, I am a comic geek.) For those of you not familiar with Warren Ellis or his outstanding body of work, he's an extremely prolific comics writer whose work touches upon sociopolitical commentary. Some of his best known works include "Planetary" (penciled by Joss Whedon 's "Astonishing X-Men" collaborator John Cassaday), "The Authority," "Global Frequency" (which had been developed by John Rogers of Kung Fu Monkey fame as a pilot for the WB two seasons ago), "Excalibur" (starring my favorite X-Man--along with Joss Whedon's--Kitty Pryde), and "Transmetropolitan." And if you, my...

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