Season 13 of Doctor Who has been substantially delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and we’re unlikely to see it until late 2021 at the earliest. Perhaps recognizing that this is going to be an unusually dry year for new Doctor Who (though we still have a holiday special coming), the BBC has corralled its various licensees to create an epic cross-media storyline: Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious.
This was unveiled in June and will be a gigantic arc starring three Doctors: the Eighth (Paul McGann), Ninth (Christopher Eccleston) and Tenth (David Tennant). The arc spans practically every form of media outside of TV, including novels, comics, audio dramas, video games and apparently even escape rooms.
Doctor Who producer James Gross recently hyped up the initiative by saying:
“BBC Studios’ Doctor Who licensees have come together to tell an amazing epic – one that’s full of monsters, fun and heart. All strands of the story unite into a mighty patchwork that ranges from one end of the universe to the next. There’s more to be revealed, but the enthusiasm and ideas which the licensees have come up with are breath-taking. It’s going to be such fun.”
It’ll all kick off on September 2nd with Titan Comics’ Time Lord Victorious #1, a two-part tale written by Jody Hauser with art by Roberta Ingranata which will see David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor once again squaring off against the Daleks. This is being billed as “the Doctor getting a glimpse of what’s to come and foreshadowing his own dark turn,” and below you can see a preview of the issue and the six variant covers:
Beyond that, the Doctor Who Annual on September 3rd will include “an exclusive tie-in” to the story,” and then we’ll get new Doctor Who novels and audio dramas every month until this massive event wraps up. My pick of the bunch has got to be Carrie Thompson’s Big Finish audio He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not featuring Paul McGann, which will release at some point in October.
