The Beeb's announced that Michelle Collins, best known for playing EastEnders' Cindy Beale for the best part of a decade, will be guest starring in the seventh episode (scripted by SFX-forumite-favourite Chris Chibnall) as a character called McDonnell. We don't know anything else apart from that, but that's not gonna stop us from speculating that she might be playing The Master, just to see how many days it takes before this piece of made-up bollocks turns up on the front page of The Daily Star.
They've also announced the title of the episode, the rather enigmatic "42". Anything to do with the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything, we wonder? Probably not.
Now, this has set us thinking about how many former EastEnders types seem to be popping up in the series nowadays. Tracy-Ann Oberman (does whatever an Ober can) and Raji James (Ash Ferreira) both turned up last year, and Babs Windsor made a cameo in the same story.
Of course, plenty of people appeared on Doctor Who before turning up in Enders. Dirty Denster Leslie Grantham was a brainwashed goon of Davros in "Resurrection of the Daleks". June Brown (Dot Cotton) was in the Pertwee story "The Time Warrior". Tony Caunter (Roy Evans) appeared in "The Crusade", "Colony in Space" and "Enlightenment". Ooh, and Ray Brooks (the recently-croaked Joe Mercer) starred in the movie Daleks: Invasion Earth 210AD.
But our favourite fact is that Michael Melia (Eddie Royle, who ran the Queen Vic for a while - remember him? No? Oh well, stuff you pal) was previously one of the reptilian Terileptils in "The Visitation".
Before anyone pipes up about "Dimensions in Time" - please don't. We like to pretend it never happened. Thanks.
