The Doctor and River Song are going on a merry romp across time and space in a new series of games based upon the lovely BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who. The first installment, Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock, was announced today for downloadable release in "early 2012" on PC, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 3 Vita.

You see, once again, the Earth is in danger, and only the Doctor and his charming ladyfriend can save us all by hopping in their time machine. Publisher BBC Worldwide--the commercial arm of the BBC--explains, "Gamers must learn to master the complexities of time travel with exceptional time based game play, changes made in one time will impact another creating multiple possibilities and challenging players to solve puzzles across the centuries."

The series is being developed by Supermassive Games, an English developer behind a number of levels for LittleBigPlanet and Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves, as well as several other PS Move titles. The "wholly new" storyline for the series was written with the BBC Wales team, who make the TV show, while Doctor Who stars Matt Smith and Alex Kingston have lent their voices to the Doctor and River.

There's no word on pricing yet.

More details on the series' next two installments are promised for next year. One can only hope that this all works out a lot better than Sumo Digital's dire Doctor Who: The Adventure Games.