Series 8 is When?!

Noooooo! Actress Jenna-Louise Coleman has stated there could be another big gap until series 8. In an interview with the Mirror she stated that "There could be a big gap ­until the next series. I think the writer Steven Moffat is off doing Sherlock and there’ll be a lot of preparation for the 50th anniversary special."

Does this mean we'll have to wait until autumn again to get series 8? Are we going to get another eight-month gap between the Christmas special and the beginning of the new season? This seems especially likely since the Christmas special doesn't begin filming until September.

Now with the current season, filming didn't begin until February. If filming for series 8 began in say, October, the series could start as early as April or May. There's no reason we'll have to wait as long for the next season as we did with the current one. I mean with series 7, they had to find a whole new actress to play the companion. They won't have to go through that casting process again, so the next season might start quicker.