Doctor Who News -- Patrick Stewart Reportedly Cast as Meddling Monk

Last of the Time Lords my ass!

John Simm and now Patrick Stewart have something to say about that.

Huddersfield Daily Examiner in West Yorkshire, England (my first excerpt from that site, certainly):

Mirfield-born Stewart is being lined up for a major role in the Time Lord’s next series after teaming up with The Doctor star David Tennant on stage.

The pair starred in a production of Hamlet in the summer and now Stewart — who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek — is reported to have been offered a role in a two-parter involving the Daleks, set to be screened next year.

Now, two parter to be screened next year would indicate that this is one of the Davies-produced specials for the off year. And, I imagine since Steve Moffat has already indicated that the Daleks will be out of the picture some the 2010 season, this will be a two-parter that definitely ends the reign of those creatures in the show (at least I hope so, I don't feel Daleks and Cybermen have a place in the new Who -- and I know I've just pissed off a whole lot of people but I don't care).

About the Meddling Monk (Wikipedia, all links theirs):

The Monk was the possessor of a stolen Mark IV TARDIS – superior to the Doctor's and with a fully functioning chameleon circuit – and said he left the Doctor's then-unnamed home planet some fifty years after the Doctor did -- which could indicate that he was a Time Lord, although it was never stated at the time since the concept of the Doctor's race had not yet been devised.

He liked to meddle in history and to change it for his own amusement and for what he considered to be the better — lending mechanical assistance to the builders of Stonehenge; giving Leonardo da Vinci tips on aircraft design; making money by using time travel to exploit compound interest; and, when the Doctor first encountered him, attempting to prevent the Norman Conquest as part of a plan to guide England into an early age of technological prosperity. On that occasion he wore the guise of a monk in order to gain the trust of the 11th-century locals of Northumbria, hence the name by which he is most often known. (His actual name was never revealed in the series.)