Rounding out the excitement from San Diego Comic Con 2017, this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special has finally been given its name, Twice Upon A Time, along with the arrival of a minute-long trailer (below). It’s going to be Peter Capaldi’s final hoorah as The Doctor and he’ll have the original Doctor, played by David Bradley, for a little extra time Lord support in the frozen Christmas adventure.
The trailer also features a role for Sherlock writer and star Mark Gatiss, who is no newcomer to the sci-fi series, having written nine episodes for Doctor Who over the years. He’s starred in the show twice before too, playing Professor Lazarus in the 2007 episode The Lazarus Experiment, and then Gantok in the 2011 episode The Wedding Of River Song.
This time he’ll be playing a World War One soldier called The Captain, who finds himself stuck with the two Doctors in a moment frozen in time. There are no details as of yet as to why he appears to be the only person other than the Doctors able to move in the time lock, but there’s no word on the villain for the special episode, so maybe there’s a dark secret behind the character.
Doctor Who 2017 Christmas Special Twice Upon A Time trailer:
The other big revelation from the trailer is this Pearl Mackie’s Bill is schedule to make an appearance in the 2017 Doctor Who Christmas special, which is a pretty big surprise considering the end of the Series 10. The 12th Doctor‘s most recent companion came to a sticky end in the final episode of the series when she was turned into a Cyberman before being killed, however, she was then saved by the Pilot and the two were last seen heading off into space for adventures together much in the same way Jenna Coleman‘s Clara and Maisie Williams’ Ashildr did in the series before.
Clearly she is going to be back in a pretty fully functioning way as you can see Bill hugging the doctor in the trailer above, but how long she’ll be sticking with Doctor Who is still to be seen. The biggest question is whether or not she’ll be a companion for the start of Series 11, or whether it’s just a final goodbye for the duo.
Twice Upon A Time will also be the first opportunity to see Jodie Whitaker taking over from Peter Capaldi in the title role for the series, making her debut as the first female Doctor. She doesn’t appear at all in the trailer, so we’re not expecting it to be anything other than a regeneration scene at the end of the show, but it’s still set to be a historic event with so much debate about the appointment.
If that isn’t enough to make the Christmas Special a momentous event, the fact that it will be the final episode for the writer and showrunner for the series, Steven Moffat. He’s been a huge part of the revival show going right the way back to its beginning in 2004, but he’ll be handing over the reigns to Chris Chibnell for Series 11, the 13th doctor and the first female lead.
