Stonehenge no stranger to mystery was shrouded in a cloak of foggy secrecy on Tuesday night, as the BBC filmed scenes for a forthcoming episode of Doctor Who inside a closed set at the iconic Wiltshire monument. Rumour has it that the first few instalments of the new season of the long-running cult timr-travelling sci-fi drama expected to air sometime in the next few months will be set sometime in the past.
Dr Who anoraks observing from the edges of the set, hoping to catch a rare glimpse of filming, spotted the Time Lord himself played by Matt Smith, the 11th Doctor to date between the standing stones and clouds of dry ice, as well as his new sidekick Amy Pond (played by Karen Gillan) and a returning character, archaeologist River Song (played by Alex Kingston).
Stonehenge has cropped-up a number of times already in the Doctor Who cosmology, although its never yet appeared in a TV episode. In 1965, during the last instalment of the shows second season, allusions were made to the monument having been constructed by a renegade Time Lord called The Monk circa 1500 BC, using anti-gravity lifts (an original extreme Stonehenge building theory if ever weve heard one).
In a Doctor Who novel in the 70s, a bad guy called the Ragman was defeated there; in another book a few years later the Doctor was taken prisoner at the site by The Monk. Most recently, in a 2005 webcast comic book, a fleet of extraterrestrial villains were seen to land near Stonehenge.
Keep a look out for the Stonehenges Doctor Who-debut when the famously spooky show hits BBC1 in the spring, if you can drag yourself out from behind the sofa.
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