A new Doctor Who trailer is here, and there is an outrageous amount of running involved
It’s been over a year since the BBC announced that Jodie Whittaker would step into Peter Capaldi’s shoes as the thieving, running, lying, saving, satsuma-throwing, fez-wearing, pear-eschewing mad man in a box commonly known as The Doctor. Since then, we’ve gotten a brief appearance, a costume, some companions, a quick teaser and an enigmatic first trailer. However, today’s release of a second trailer for Doctor Who’s 11th season—the first season for new showrunner Chris Chibnall, as well as the first ever with a female Doctor—includes two foundational Doctor Who elements, and in significant quantities: Broad statements of purpose with regard to the saving of people and universes, and running. Lots of running. Love the running.
While it doesn’t exactly feel like business as usual—Macklemore?—this latest glimpse of what’s to come does check off some other classic Doctor Who boxes, as well. Two suns rise over an unfamiliar planet! Things blow up as The Doctor and her companions (Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill, and Bradley Walsh) race past! Mysterious creatures float through dark interiors! Something makes a creepy noise under a bed! Stuff get sonic screwdrivered! But it’s the running, and the broad statements, that really connect this Doctor to her predecessors. “I’m The Doctor,” she says. “When people need help, I never refuse.” Later: “I’m just a traveler. Sometimes I see things need fixing. I do what I can.” You could pop both those declarations into any of the Nu-Who seasons and they’d sound right at home.
One notable thing missing from this trailer is the TARDIS. In the 2017 Christmas special “Twice Upon A Time,” the TARDIS explodes as the newly regenerated Doctor falls through space, but there’s no way it’s gone for good, of course. There’s a chance that the interior of the infamous blue police box is glimpsed around the :53 mark—either the cable-y stuff with the floating electrical-monster-jellyfish-looking thing, or maybe the white space that immediately follows—but that’s total speculation. Odds are we won’t see that particular mainstay until Chibnall and the BBC are good and ready to show us the thing in full.
The premiere for Doctor Who’s 11th season, called “The Woman Who Fell To Earth,” arrives on Sunday, October 7. BBC America will air the episode simultaneously with its U.K. debut (time TBA), and will air it again in its primetime evening slot. Aw, brilliant.