Jodie Whittaker’s inaugural season as the Doctor was a big hit and as such, the BBC announcing that Doctor Who wouldn’t be returning until 2020 was met with dismay. But wait, as there’s now a faint chance that we’ll see a new adventure in 2019 after all. The rumor comes from long-running British TV magazine the Radio Times, which is reporting that there are plans afoot to air a standalone special this year.
Now, this could be as simple as confirmation that they’re working on a Christmas episode. After all, it’s been previously reported that the BBC were unhappy with the viewing figures for the 2019 New Year’s Day episode, and there’ve been indications that they’re making a Christmas Day special as has become traditional since 2015. But, as the story points out, nothing is certain.
In fact, they’re theorizing that this proposed one-off might avoid the festive season altogether and air in a less competitive slot. When could this be, though?
Well, an obvious opportunity given the show’s infamous history of scaring children might be Halloween. Season 11 was fun, but at no point was it spooky in the way some of the Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi episodes were. A proper edge-of-your-seat Doctor Who ghost story would be a really neat surprise for fans. But it’s already July, so to get a new episode out by the end of October might be a bit of a stretch.
Whatever the case, Doctor Who season 12 proper is shaping up very nicely. The Judoon have been absent from our screens for far too long (their last appearance was a cameo in the season 9 story “Face the Raven” back in 2015), so seeing the Thirteenth tangle with them will be a nice bonus. Plus, it seems that our dose of historical adventure will be a trip to occupied Paris. Maybe they’ll actually get a chance to kill Hitler this time?
Regardless, we’ll bring you more on this potential 2019 one-off episode as soon as anything else surfaces.
