Author: Erin Carson / Source: CNET
In a little over a week, Doctor Who fans will climb aboard the Tardis for another season of the long-running British science fiction show. This season, which has an official start date of Oct. 7, just about everything is new — the logo, the companions, the showrunner and notably the Doctor herself. Yes, .
For the first time in Doctor Who’s 55-year history, the titular character will be played by a woman, Jodie Whittaker. She’s the 13th actor to play the role that’s changed hands so many times through the character’s ability to regenerate into a new body instead of dying (just go with it).
The first episode is titled The Woman Who Fell to Earth, and written by new showrunner Chris Chibnall. CNET’s Richard Trenholm got a look and reviews the episode here.
Whether you’re totally caught up or got sucked into a pocket universe, here’s a rundown of everything we know so far about the upcoming season 11.
Doctor What?
For the unfamiliar, Doctor Who dates back to 1963. It’s the long-running story of an alien called the Doctor who travels through the always wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey space and time using a police-box-shaped ship called the Tardis (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), which he stole. And yeah, the Tardis is bigger on the inside.
The show can go on decade after decade because the Doctor is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, and Time Lords have the power to regenerate. So, when an actor feels like splitting the show (or gets pushed out), the Doctor gets a new face and some new personality quirks, but theoretically, the character’s the same person.
Doctor Who is a British institution and staple of Saturday night television. Stateside, it’s picked up quite a bit of popularity in recent years after the series was rebooted in 2005 with the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, played by Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant.
There was thought to be a cap on how many times the Doctor could regenerate (12), but during the Christmas special wherein Matt Smith‘s Eleventh Doctor regenerated into Peter Capaldi‘s Twelfth Doctor, the Time Lords granted him more regenerations.
Along the way, the Doctor meets people who end up traveling with him back in time or to the far-flung reaches of the universe to save perhaps a handful of people stranded on a spaceship, or, you know, the fate of humankind. He’s got a knack for running into villains like the Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels and others ranging from campy to creepy.
Release date and where to watch
Doctor Who season 11 begins on Sunday Oct. 7. Yes, Sunday — a slight departure for the show as it moves to the end of the weekend.
You can catch the show on BBC One in the UK and BBC America in the US, or stream older episodes on the usual spots like BBC iPlayer, Britbox, Amazon, iTunes and Google Play.
Meet the new Doctor
After the Twelfth Doctor, played by Capaldi, announced he’d be leaving after three seasons, talk started swirling about who would get the keys to the Tardis next. In July 2017, the BBC announced Jodie Whittaker would get the gig.
“It feels completely overwhelming, as a feminist, as a woman, as an actor, as a human, as someone who wants to continually push themselves and challenge themselves, and not be boxed in by what you’re told you can and can’t be,” Whittaker said in a Q&A on the BBC site for Doctor Who.
Predictably, not everyone on the internet was stoked the Doctor would be…
The post Doctor Who: Season 11 premiere date, trailer, plot details and more appeared first on FeedBox.