Doctor Who fans are counting down the weeks until we get to see Jodie Whittaker make her proper debut as the Thirteenth Doctor when the series returns for its eleventh season. As exciting as that is, there has been one reason to be mournful, as evidence up to this point had suggested there won’t be a Christmas special this year.
Ever since the sci-fi show returned to screens in 2005, it’s had a Christmas special every year, even during periods when the full seasons were on hiatus. What made us think the tradition had ended, though, was that the press release for season 11 made reference to nine, 50-minute episodes and a 65 minute season opener, but didn’t mention an additional hour-long festive special, as you’d expect.
And yet, a new piece of evidence has now come our way which suggests that there will be a Doctor Who Christmas episode this year after all. It’s been noticed that the online CV of professional TV editor Edel McDonnell lists her latest credit as the 2018 Who special. The listing also names director Wayne Yip and producer Nikki Wilson as working on the episode, both of whom are frequent players behind the scenes of Doctor Who.
This gives us a lot of hope, then, that we were wrong before and Christmas won’t be cancelled for Doctor Who fans as we feared. We’re expecting to hear a lot more about season 11 during the show’s panel at this month’s San Diego Comic-Con, including a release date, so perhaps the existence of a Christmas special will finally be 100% confirmed at that point? Time will tell, but we remain hopeful.
Jodie Whittaker, new companions Tosin Cole and Mandip Gill and EPs Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens will be attending the Doctor Who panel in Hall H, which is set to take place on Thursday, July 19th, and we’ll be bringing you all the updates from the convention as they arise, so be sure to stay tuned.
