After a brief rest between the end of the Christmas Special it seems things are about to kick back into action next week as Neil Gaiman's script begins production with a read-through on Tuesday, according to his blog today:

I'm flying to the UK on Sunday for the Doctor Who table read on Tuesday. This morning I was sent the producers' "this is what we can afford" edited draft of my Doctor Who script. I'll do a polish on that. And then we're pretty much done. I think. I hope. I pray.

(Seeing a few people have asked, writing a Babylon 5 episode was much simpler: I think it was two drafts. But it was all existing sets and basically no special effects. My Doctor Who episode is Bigger in every way, inside and outside: I've asked them for the impossible, and they've knocked themselves out to give it to me, and when they can't they've managed to somehow give me the very improbable.)

If you've followed his blog/tweets in recent weeks you'd know that he's had to make quite a few re-writes, and in this article he mentions the loss of several dialogue scenes which he thought were nice but weren't really needed for the plot (oh, the days of 20th Century Who when you could have scenes and scenes of TARDIS chat ... not!).

He picked on one scene in particular, where the Doctor is having a meal of sorts; here's the scene:

AMY
Is it something people can eat?
(to Doctor)
Shouldn’t you scan it with your screwdriver or something?

THE DOCTOR
Why would I scan food with my screwdriver?

AMY
See if it’s safe?

The Doctor leans over, dips his finger into his bowl, tastes it.

THE DOCTOR
Some unusual trace elements, smidge too much background radiation, but, yeah, very yummy.

Amy is about to try some of his food... he stops her.

THE DOCTOR (cont’d)
No. Don’t put it in your mouth.

AMY
Not for humans?

THE DOCTOR
Not for you. Tastes like Marmite on socks.

If all goes to plan, filming should start over the course of next week, so time to keep those eyes peeled!