Reversing earlier denials, and delighting fanboys and girls everywhere, Neil Gaiman confirmed to SFX magazine Saturday that he is writing an episode of Doctor Who.
Gaiman’s entry in the long-running British sci-fi drama will air during Matt Smith’s second season. Production is just wrapping on his first season, the fifth since the show was relaunched after a long hiatus in 2005.
Accepting the SFX award for best comic for the DC Batman opus Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader, Gaiman hinted at the assignment with reverence and humility. The author of Stardust, American Gods, Coraline and The Graveyard Book, as well as the Sandman graphic novels, said:
“As anyone who’s read my blog knows, I’m a big fan of a certain long-running British SF TV series. One that started watching — from behind the sofa — when I was three. And while I know it’s cruel to make you wait for things, in about 14 months from now, which is to say, NOT in the upcoming season but early in the one after that, it’s quite possible that I might have written an episode. And if I had, it would originally have been called “The House of Nothing”. But it definitely isn’t called that any more.
“Countdown. You’ve got about 14 months.”