The next series of the show will see Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill depart the show as Amy and Rory Pond, to be replaced at Christmas by newcomer Jenna-Louise Coleman in an unconfirmed role.

And now, speaking in Doctor Who Magazine, Moffat has said that while the new character will "shock", there will be familiar elements. He said: "I'll answer you in the show about how it’s going to be different. But because it is going to be different. It's going to be a shock, I think. In terms of the companions all being 'the same' - that’s not as phony or artistically crap a thing to say as it sounds.

"What is the base group of people who would run away with the Doctor? They're all going to be a bit mad. A bit dislocated. Not happy with where they are. Are they yearning for outer space? They're going to be people who feel like they can take on the Doctor, who's quite an intimidating sort of person. So, they're going to be feisty - they're going to be all those things. He sort of defines the people who are going to travel with him. The distinction comes very much from the various actors and actresses. So, you know, they’re the ones who create the differences between them. But you are always going to have the same sort of person, just because it's the same man choosing them, and it"s the same person being chosen."

Moffat also addressed the trend for the companions usually being young women. He said: "I think the function of a companion is pretty simple. I don't think that's very difficult. It’s just a question of who credibly is going to agree to go in the TARDIS? Who’s going to do it? Is it going to be a mother of 15 children? No. Is it going to be someone in their 60s? No. Is there going to be a particular age range? I mean... who's going to have a crush on the Doctor? You know, come on! It's more than a format. It's evolved from good, dramatic reasons."

Doctor Who returns for new episodes in the autumn, ahead of its 50th anniversary next year.

The band signed on to guest star mainly because they are big fans of the show, which follows the adventures of a trio of slackers. (The title is meant to be ironic.) The show used a bit of their recent hit "Lonely Boy" in an episode last fall.

COMEDY CENTRAL To Post Exclusive Content On Facebook Each Day For 50 Days Leading Up
To The June 20 Premiere Of The Emmy® Award-Winning Animated Comedy Series

Podcasts To Be Hosted By Executive Producer David X. Cohen With A Rotating Cast Of
“Futurama” Writers And Producers Who Will Provide Inside Commentary

Podcasts To Feature At Least One 20 - 60 Second Video Clip From An Upcoming Episode

NEW YORK, May 1, 2012 – COMEDY CENTRAL is taking “Futurama” fans on a 50 day multi-platform journey leading up to the series’ seventh season premiere on Wednesday, June 20 at 10:00 p.m. The "Countdown To ‘Futurama’” launches on Facebook on Tuesday, May 1 and for 50 consecutive days will provide fans with exclusive content including preview clips, character designs, episode stills, story boards and more each day. For the countdown kick-off, COMEDY CENTRAL will post a sneak peek clip from the season premiere episode, “The Bots and the Bees.” “Futurama’s” Facebook page has over 20 million fans and ranks among the top five animated television show pages.

Beginning on Monday, May 7, CC Digital will feature the first of seven weekly podcasts, which will include a week’s worth of “Countdown To ‘Futurama’” content. Hosted by Executive Producer David X. Cohen, who will be joined by a rotating cast of other “Futurama” writers and producers, this all-new feature will provide viewers with inside commentary on each piece of exclusive content along with a first look at images from upcoming episodes, as well as character designs, stills, storyboards and concept sketches. The “Futurama” weekly podcasts will only be available on iTunes.®

In addition to Facebook, COMEDY CENTRAL will integrate the “Countdown To ‘Futurama’” on-air and online, including a daily feature on the CC Insider blog, the COMEDY CENTRAL Tumblr page and on mobile via SMS messaging.

"Futurama" focuses on the life of Philip Fry (Billy West), a 25-year-old pizza delivery boy who accidentally freezes himself on December 31, 1999 and wakes up 1,000 years later with a fresh start at life at Planet Express, an intergalactic delivery company. There he meets love interest Leela (Katey Sagal), a sexy cyclops with anger management issues, and best friend Bender (John DiMaggio), a beer-powered kleptomaniac robot. In 2011, the series earned two Emmys® for Outstanding Animated Program and Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for Maurice LaMarche.

"Futurama," created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen, is produced by Twentieth Century Fox Television, with Rough Draft Studios, Inc. contributing the animation.

20th Century Fox Television, a division of News Corp, is a leading supplier of entertainment content domestically and around the world.

Available in 99 million homes nationwide, COMEDY CENTRAL (www.comedycentral.com), the only all-comedy network, is owned by, and is a registered trademark of, Comedy Partners, a wholly-owned unit of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA and VIAB). For up-to-the-minute and archival press information and photographs visit Press Central, COMEDY CENTRAL's press web site at www.comedycentral.com/press and follow us on Twitter @ComedyCentralPR for the latest in breaking news updates, behind-the-scenes information and photos.

Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA, VIAB) is home to the world's premier entertainment brands that connect with audiences through compelling content across television, motion picture, online and mobile platforms in more than 160 countries and territories. With approximately 170 media networks reaching more than 600 million global subscribers, Viacom's leading brands include MTV, VH1, CMT, Logo, BET, CENTRIC, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., TeenNick, Nicktoons, Nick at Nite, COMEDY CENTRAL, TV Land, Spike TV and Tr3s. Paramount Pictures, America's oldest film studio and creator of many of the most beloved motion pictures, continues today as a major global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment. Viacom operates a large portfolio of branded digital media experiences, including many of the world's most popular properties for entertainment, community and casual online gaming. For more information about Viacom and its businesses, visit www.viacom.com.

The May sweeps opened Thursday with CBS' "The Big Bang Theory" the top-rated show among viewers 18-49 but with Fox scoring a primetime victory among the networks.

According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, "Big Bang" (4.0 rating/13 share in 18-49, 12.5 million viewers overall) was tops at 8 p.m. and demonstrably stronger than a year ago, when it posted a 3.3/10 in the demo.

"American Idol" (3.9/12, 14.4 million), on the other hand, has dropped dramatically from where it was last year at this time (5.7/17), through it remains the night's top program among total viewers.

Fox in fact won the hour over CBS, which had "Rules of Engagement" (2.5/7, 8.3 million) at 8:30 p.m. NBC was third in 18-49 with "Community" (1.4/4, 3.3 million) and a live-on-both-coasts episode of "30 Rock" (1.6/5, 3.5 million), followed by ABC's "Missing" (1.3/4, 6.9 million) and the CW's "The Vampire Diaries" (1.0/3, 2.2 million).

ABC surged to the top at 9 p.m. with "Grey's Anatomy" (3.2/8, 9.3 million), which topped CBS' "Person of Interest" (2.4/6, 12.5 million) in the demo if not total viewers. Thanks to "Touch" (1.9/5, 6.5 million), Fox was nearly even at 9 p.m. with NBC, which aired "The Office" (2.1/6, 4.1 million) and "Parks and Recreation" (1.6/4, 3.2 million). The CW offered "The Secret Circle" (0.5/1, 1.2 million).

At 10 p.m., CBS' "The Mentalist" (2.1/6, 11.9 million) and ABC's "Scandal" (2.1/6, 7.0 million) were even in the demo at 10 p.m., with NBC's "Awake" (0.8/2, 2.2 million) trailing.

Preliminary 18-49 averages for the night: Fox 2.9/8, CBS 2.6/7, ABC 2.2/6, NBC 1.4/4, CW 0.8/2.

In total viewers: CBS 11.6 million, Fox 10.5 million, ABC 7.7 million, NBC 3.1 million, CW 1.7 million.

Netflix is planning to simultaneously release the entire fourth season of Arrested Development “sometime next year,” the company announced at a National Association of Broadcasters event in Las Vegas Tuesday evening.

The streaming video subscription service is developing 10 episodes of the series, which was cancelled for poor performance in 2006, in partnership with Fox and Imagine Television.

Each episode will center around one character, the show’s creator, Mitchell Hurwitz, said from the stage. He added that the new shows will be similar to the previous ones, but declined to go into further specifics about the format or storyline.

Hurwitz also expressed hope that he and his team could go on to produce fifth and sixth seasons of the show for Netflix, should the first 10 episodes prove successful.

Netflix revealed in November that it had signed a deal to revive the beloved sitcom, which it would bring exclusively to its U.S. subscribers in the first half of 2013. The company now appears to be less certain about the timing of the release, but did say on Tuesday that episode production would begin this summer.

This isn’t the first time that Netflix has released an entire season of an original show at once. The company’s first original series, Lilyhammer, premiered its 8 original episodes all on Feb. 6, and is planning to bring the show back for a second season.

Back in February, scaremaster Ryan Murphy teased that the second season of American Horror Story would involve a “horror institution” on the East Coast. Now the series’ co-creator has revealed what that institution is — as well as which familiar face will be running the joint.

According to Murphy, the show’s sophomore season “is set on the East Coast at an institution for the criminally insane that is run by Jessica [Lange].” He revealed the news yesterday at a TV Academy panel in North Hollywood. As The Hollywood Reporter points out, AHS‘s season 1 episode “Birth” contained a clue about this setting; in one scene, a medium played by Sarah Paulson notes that certain places, like prisons or asylums (or Murder Houses), tend to be filled with a negative energy that feeds on trauma and pain.

But don’t expect to see Lange reprise her role as cruel, campy Constance Langdon. Instead, she’ll be playing a new character altogether — fitting, since Murphy also explained that season 2 “is set in a completely different time period.”

AHS cast members Paulson, Evan Peters, Lily Rabe, and Zachary Quinto will appear with Lange in Season 2; Murphy has not yet revealed which of them, if any, will play inmates at Lange’s asylum. They’ll also be joined by a new face: The Voice coach Adam Levine, who will play one of two “lovers,” alongside an actress yet to be named.

CHICAGO – Who gets wetter, someone walking in the rain or running? Is it really possible to hang from a cliff by your fingers until help arrives like they do in the movies? And is Superman the only one who is faster than a speeding bullet?

Those are questions the Discovery Channel’s “MythBusters” has asked for years, and anybody who’s wondered how long it takes to put on a superhero outfit in a phone booth – don’t forget the cape – can answer them for themselves at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.

“MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition,” opened last week, marking the first time the show has taken such questions on the road. The Chicago exhibition, which runs through Sept. 3, is the first of a planned national tour that will include stops at several other U.S. cities.

“This has both the science and also a sense of humor, what we’ve been doing for a decade,” Adam Savage, one of the show’s hosts, said before the exhibition opened.Just like on the show, the exhibit is a kind of scientific bait and switch. It starts with something visitors have seen in the movies or on TV or that they can recall from their own experiences, like dishes crashing to the floor when the tablecloth is yanked.

“That’s the hook,” said Jamie Hyneman, also a “MythBusters” co-host. “That gets them involved and before they know what happens they’ve actually learned something or been lured into thinking carefully about what’s going on.”

The exhibit consists of about a dozen stations mixed in with props familiar to viewers, such as the actual casket Hyneman lay in for a segment on being buried alive. In one station shaped like a ship cargo container, a visitor walks and another runs for 20 feet while water drips from hoses above. When they’re wet, they go around the corner and, because the water contains traces of fluorescent dye, they can see just how many drops hit them as they stand in front of a black light.

After determining which one of them is wetter, the participants press either the run or walk button. The results will be stored for now and revealed when the show leaves in September. “We may have 100,000 come through and we can see what the results are over time,” said Geoffrey Curley, whose company helped create the exhibit with the museum, Discovery Communications and Exhibits Development Group. 

Movies and television and just plain storytelling play a big role in the exhibit. There is, for example, a place to build small houses out of progressively heavier blocks – one made of marble, another of wood and another of foam to represent the bricks, sticks and straw used by the three little pigs – to see if all that effort by the last little pig was worth it.

There is another exhibit for anyone who’s wondered if a blind Al Pacino really could have navigated a car through the streets of New York in “Scent of a Woman” based on the directions given by a terrified Chris O’Donnell from the passenger seat. With the help of video arcade-style equipment, visitors can see if they do as well as Pacino or better than Hyneman and Savage did on the show.

The exhibit also includes a live show that asks whether it’s possible to dodge a bullet – or at least a paint ball. Those selected from the audience will be asked to come onstage, put on a protective coat and hold a clear plastic shield in front of them to see if they can jump out of the way before a paint ball traveling 250 feet per second, or 175 mph, hits the shield with a splat.

One thing missing from the exhibit that is a big part of the show are explosions. Hyneman said there was just no way in an enclosed space to safely blow stuff up.

And visitors, particularly teenage boys, will be saddened to find that Hyneman and Savage could not pull off – though not for lack of trying – a flatulence exhibit.

It turns out that there are two key ingredients that together add up to a memorable olfactory experience, which led Hyneman to look for a way to create some kind of “fart vending machine” that for a quarter would combine those ingredients.

“I figured teenage boys would be lined up around the block for that one,” he said. “The problem is the stuff is toxic, ... so we just couldn’t pull it off.”

The show’s stars hope the exhibit will bust what they say is the biggest myth of all: Science is just for nerds.

“Science is cool,” said one of the show’s stars, Kari Byron, as she looked around the exhibition.

AHOY RATINGS!

DEADLIEST CATCH SEASON PREMIERE SCORES NUMBER ONE, DELIVERING OVER THREE MILLION VIEWERS

DEADLIEST CATCH launched its eighth season and celebrated its 100th episode delivering over 3.14 million viewers P2+, making the boys of the Bering Sea the #1 non-sports primetime cable telecast among P2+, Persons and Men 25-54 and Persons and Men 18-49. The Tuesday, April 10th season premiere episode, The Gamble, earned a 2.19 HH / 2.07 Persons 25-54. DEADLIEST CATCH was #2 among Women 25-54.

DEADLIEST CATCH out-delivered several broadcast programs among Men 25-54, including: ABC's Last Man Standing, Body of Proof, Dancing With The Stars (Results) and Cougar Town; NBC's Biggest Loser and Fashion Star; FOX' Glee and Raising Hope; and CBS' Unforgettable.

An all new DEADLIEST CATCH premieres next Tuesday, April 17 at 9pm e/p on Discovery.