Friday, July 20, 2018

Doctor Who - Series 11 Spoilers (SDCC 2018 & More)

Okay, first of all, it's not just stuff from San Diego Comic Con 2018 that I will be covering in relation to the upcoming eleventh series of Doctor Who but loads of stuff that's been hinted at and revealed over the last several months in relation to Jodie Whittaker's debut series.


Yesterday, the show attended SDCC with Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole, Bradley Walsh (not actually there but he made an appearance nonetheless), Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens and after several months of not revealing too much, yesterday decided to give us a little bit more. First of all though, let's talk about that leaked clip from the first episode of Series 11 from last month. It didn't get an outing at SDCC yesterday and heads are rolling over whoever leaked it but it did give us a bit of insight into the personality of Jodie's Doctor as we saw her interact with new companions Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) and Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole) on an abandoned train. We also got a sneak peek of the new sonic screwdriver before it's proper outing yesterday as demonstrated in the above picture.


Meanwhile in the space of five days, we've had two trailers released for the eleventh series. The first trailer saw the new Doctor making her presence known to new companions, Ryan, Yasmin and Graham O'Brien (Bradley Walsh) while the second trailer showed us some clips of the new series but managed not to reveal a single monster. Instead we have the new Doctor dealing with post regeneration headaches and asking for some new friends. These trailer might seem a tad restrained compared to past ones and you could argue that Chris Chibnall might be hiding too much at this rate but both certainly succeeded in tempting casual viewers back in the fold though.


In terms of spoilers/rumours, here is what has been confirmed over the last few months, especially as of yesterday.

- There are ten episodes for Series 11, with the first episode being 65 minutes long and the remaining nine being 50 minutes long. There will be no two parters this season and each episode will be standalone.
- Segun Akinola has replaced Murray Gold as the show's new composer.
- Guest stars confirmed so far for episodes are Lee Mack, Alan Cumming and Shaun Dooley.
- There will be a Christmas special this year, set to be directed by Wayne Yip who directed the episodes The Lie Of The Land and Empress Of Mars as well as two episodes of cancelled spin-off series, Class.
- There are rumoured to be no returning monsters though there have been some set reports that indicate this isn't entirely true. Most of the monsters will be new though.
- Sharon D. Clarke's recurring character is called Mary and she's meant to be Graham's wife. Yasmin will be a police officer.
- Jodie has described her Doctor as being egalitarian with a gang of mates.
- A writers room was seemingly confirmed by Chibnall at the SDCC panel yesterday as well. None of the new writers have been revealed though. It's been confirmed there will be POC writers this series as well as a 50/50 male/female director split.
- One episode may be focusing on Rosa Parks while another could be looking into witch trials.
- Chibnall and Jodie have described the series as a good jumping on point for new viewers as well.

Well, that seems to be everything for now but given that we've had two trailers over the last few days and several promotional pictures and interviews, it seems like we're getting closer and closer to seeing the new era for ourselves. As someone who wasn't keen on the idea of a female Doctor, I can't help but admit that this looks very exciting. As the tagline for this series emphasising - the universe is calling.

Series 11 Trailer 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNy2kz-F0KQ
Series 11 Trailer 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEc-OQ_oqDk
SDCC Highlights: https://twitter.com/DoctorWho_BBCA
Press Release: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/entries/b06dcdff-2d81-4b63-bdb0-5b4e84bc1035

Series 11 will air on BBC1 and BBCAmerica in the Autumn. Date to be confirmed. Meanwhile for some of the Classic Series, scoot on over to Twitch.

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