Game Of Thrones' Jacob Anderson joins Doctor Who as some kind of space-badass

Doctor Who held its pre-taped Comic-Con At Home panel today, and while nobody addressed the rumors about star Jodie Whittaker potentially leaving the show after this season—a move that, if true, would follow a precedent set by the last two stars, since this would be Whittaker’s third season and both Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi left after three—the panelists did release a very short new teaser and share a new casting announcement. The casting announcement is that Jacob Anderson, a.k.a. Grey Worm from Game Of Thrones, will be joining the cast as Vinder, some kind of Han Solo-lookin’ space-badass with a gun and cool hair.

In a pre-taped segment on the pre-taped panel, Anderson seemed positively thrilled to be joining Doctor Who and seemed very excited for people to get to see what his character’s deal is. Also, maybe he dressed up his background for Comic-Con, but he had some cool Voltron toys and a bunch of Batman comics behind him during his thing. That’s not really relevant, but it is our duty as journalists to let everyone know when a recognizable actor has cool Voltron toys in their Zoom background.

As for the trailer, there’s not much to say about it since it’s very short, but it does have that classic zippy Doctor Who trailer energy with no ominous foreshadowing about The Doctor running out of time or answering for whatever cosmic sins she has committed against the Daleks or the Sontarans or the Cybermen, so if Doctor 13 is on the way out, it probably wouldn’t happen until this year’s Christmas special/Holiday special/New Year’s Eve special anyway. Then again, showrunner Chris Chibnall teased during the panel that, rather than doing episodic monster-of-the-week stories like Doctor Who has normally done since the BBC launched this revival, this season will be dedicated to one ongoing storyline. In theory, that could be an excuse to set up some major events as the season goes on, so maybe The Doctor will eventually have to answer for some cosmic sins she committed against various alien factions.