Mark Williams during filming of series seven

With the Gallifrey One convention this past week, news on the good Doctor is coming hot and fast. There’s talk of the Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover comic from IDW. The ‘Community’ spinoff ‘Inspector Spacetime’ is trying to get into production. Now, the latest tidbit of information to come down the ‘Doctor Who’ pipeline is some official news on the upcoming series seven.

Series seven of ‘Doctor Who’ (well… series seven since the 2005 relaunch) began filming this week. Today, the BBC gave fans the first official image from the new series, as well as some info on some upcoming guest-stars.

Intrepid fans have already caught glimpses of Mark Williams on the ‘Doctor Who’ set. Williams is best known for his role as muggle-obsessed Arthur Weasley in the ‘Harry Potter’ films. The BBC has also confirmed that Williams’ ‘Harry Potter’ co-star David Bradley, who played Argus Filch, will also be appearing in ‘Doctor Who’ this time around. Finally, Rupert Graves, (‘Sherlock’) has also been officially announced as a guest.

In addition to the guest appearance announcements, the BBC also released the first official promotional image (below) of the cast (Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and Arthur Darvill) for series seven.

Along with the announcement, the BBC also mentioned that ‘Doctor Who’ series seven will consist of “fourteen big, blockbuster-movie episodes – each a brand new epic adventure featuring new monsters and some familiar foes as you’ve never seen them before.”

With those fourteen episodes (which we assume will also include the Christmas episode), the BBC further states that, “Series 7 will then see a dramatic turn of events when The Doctor meets a new friend. Prepare yourselves for thrills, adventures and dramatic surprises as the show builds towards its enormous, climactic 50th anniversary year.”

Familiar foes, eh? I just hope the Daleks are not the Teletubby multi-colored versions the next go ‘round. And what could the BBC have in store for the 50th anniversary? Could there be truth to the rumor that we’ll see our first female Doctor? Stay tuned to ScienceFiction.com for more details as we get them!