WMG / Doctor Who Series 11

• "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos"
• "Resolution"

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Pre-Release Theories

Missy will return...as a "Miss Clever" Cyberleader

The Doctor did re-set the Cybermen's programming to consider two-hearted humanoids fair game for "upgrading", after all, and they needn't necessarily have reversed that change when they undid his hacking, just adjusted it to allow for both single- and double-hearted recruits. The two Masters had walked some distance from the battlefield before taking their Chronic Backstabbing Disorder up to eleven, so Missy's fallen body would've been safely out of range of the explosions. And we know from "Heaven Sent" that Time Lords take a really long time to die, so even without the benefits of regeneration, there could easily be enough life left in her flesh for the Cybermen to "upgrade" what was left of her, when the next wave of Operation Exodus came through to occupy Floor 507. It'd make for a nice bit of karmic irony for Missy to share Bill's fate, not to mention maintaining the tradition of something nasty - rotting alive, turning into a cat or an invisible snake, affliction with Horror Hunger - happening to every incarnation of the Master near the end of their tenure. Whether Cyber-Missy's agenda would remain her own, or whether she'd be dominated by the Cyber-programming like so many of the dead she'd converted in "Dark Water"/"Death In Heaven" is anybody's guess.

This could make for a really nice "out" for the next writer to tackle the Master/Mistress character, given the way Missy seemed to be truly reforming, if they decide they'd rather have a true villain. Cybermen are known, above all else, for suppressing and eliminating emotions. Missy has started to feel sympathy, regret, hope....even if she eventually escapes the full conversion, and physically returns to normal, her emotions may be permanently damaged, turning her back into the evil sociopathic menace we've known and loved to hate!

• Looking Jossed given developments in the Expanded Universe. The February 2018 short story collection The Missy Chronicles ends with "Alit in Underland", a short story set during the two-week Time Skip in "The Doctor Falls" that follows the two Masters as they find a way to reprogram the Cybermen so that they will no longer be seen as targets for upgrading, which adds a new wrinkle to the events of that story. (The Doctor is unconscious during these events so he doesn't find out what they did.) In general, Expanded Universe works don't get to play with ideas that would be superseded by plans for the televised canon, so this would seem to rule out Missy being Cyber-converted.
  • Also, another story in the collection ("The Liar, the Glitch, and the Warzone") reveals that Missy once encountered Thirteen without realizing it until it was too late. She's the curator Missy encounters in modern Venice who rescues the pickpocket kids Missy leaves behind in the past.

Bill will return

Heather will be with her and they will save the day in at least one episode. Or perhaps they will appear right after the Doctor saves the day, and wonder what happened. The important thing is, at least one of them will mention a great outer-space diner and the nice young waitress there...

• ...or maybe the interesting encounter they'd had at the diner with said nice young waitress, a chatty young lady called Jenny who'd stopped in for a meal, and a cloud of sparkling, ghostly motes of light that kept drifting back and forth outside the windows.
• Jossed. Chis Chibnall claims that no old characters will be returning this season.

The companion will be the little girl

Alit, or one of the other Mondasian colony ship inhabitants from "The Doctor Falls".

• Jossed: The new Doctor will have a trio of human companions, apparently from contemporary Earth. (Those who would like to see an Alit-as-companion story are directed to the aforementioned short story "Alit in Underland", which has her as a Tagalong Kid to the Masters.)

Potential villains

• The Daleks. They're a given at this point, especially in a new Doctor's first season, and even more this time out as they have not been the principal antagonists of a story since "The Magician's Apprentice"/"The Witch's Familiar" at the top of Series 9. Moreover, of the Big Three Whoniverse antagonists, they were the only ones who didn't get to be Season Finale antagonists in the Twelfth Doctor era (the Cybermen and the Master jointly held those duties in Series 8 and 10, and Series 9 went in another direction with the Time Lords' treachery turning the Doctor into a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds for a while). It may well be time for them to be an Arc Villain again — a status they haven't held since Series 4!
  • Chibnall's claim that there won't be old monsters in series 11 suggests that the Daleks will likely be limited to the contractually obligated cameo at most, if they're still bound to that.
  • Alternately, the Daleks could be the Greater-Scope Villain behind the original Big Bad, not being revealed until the last few seconds.
• The Cybermen. The main drawback to this would be that they were not only antagonists in the Series 10 finale, but also that storyline was by far the best-regarded Cybermen storyline of the revival to date, making it a Tough Act to Follow.
• The Autons and the Nestene Consciousness.
• The Weeping Angels, who've had no more than passing cameos in the televised franchise since Series 7.
• A mythological creature.
• A renegade Time Lord like the Rani, the Monk, or maybe even the Master/Missy (the last is probably least likely because they were the Twelfth Doctor's Arc Villain).
• A previously one-off villain, like the Sycorax or the Celestial Toymaker.
• An Eldritch Abomination-type villain.
• The Valeyard.
• The Sontarans, considering the fact we haven't had a proper episode with them as villains since Series 4.
• The Terrible Zodin
• The Daleks, Cybermen, Autons, Nestenes, Weeping Angels, Sycorax, Celestial Toymaker, Valeyard, and Sontarans are all Jossed. Chris Chibnall says there will be no old monsters in Season 11.
  • Don't discount the potential obligatory Dalek cameo.
    • Again, Chibnall’s claim that there won’t be any returning villains or characters in Season 11 makes this unlikely outside of the obligatory Daleks appearance. Furthermore, a new villain race called The Stenza is being pushed as the current series’ alien villain.
    • Daleks are the villain of "Resolution", but do not appear in the main series.
• "The Tsuranga Conundrum" has Freeze-Frame Bonus appearances of a Cyberman, a Sontaran, a Silurian, a Weeping Angel, a Silent, an Ood, a Slitheen, and a Zygon on a computer screen.

Episodes not written by Chris Chibnall will be split 50/50 between male and female writers.

• One of the female writers will be Jenny Colgan.
  • Jossed: She's not writing for this season.
• Apparently he's writing five episodes. The five guest writers who will write the others are two women and three men.
• The new writers are: Malorie Blackman, Ed Hime, Vinay Patel, Pete McTighe and Joy Wilkinson.

The Lungbarrow notion that Time Lords are birthed from looms will be brought into the TV canon.

• Because the idea of a pregnant female Time Lord regenerating into a male, is just too icky.
  • You mean as opposed to a pregnant female just plain dying and losing the baby that way instead...?
  • Plus, for all we know, there could be some sort of Limitation where pregnant Time Lords are forced to remain female until the baby is born.
  • Possibly Jossed, at least for series 11. In an interview, the interviewer straight-up asked if looms will be made canon in the show. Chibnall was very surprised by the question, possibly indicating he hadn't even thought about it. His response: "The short answer is, not this series."
• And now definitely jossed for this season.

At least one episode will deal with the Doctor being affected by No Equal-Opportunity Time Travel (or at least having to avoid it somehow).

The 13th Doctor will probably find it harder trying to take charge of a situation or expect to be taken seriously if she goes back far enough in Earth's history, than her previous male incarnations. Unless she tries to pass off as male somehow, or spend more time in the background of events.

• Or maybe she'll play up the "Lady" part of being a Time Lady a lot more in such situations, neatly sidestepping old-school sexism by trumping it with equally old-style classism. It's worked for dozens of aristocratic female villains on this show, after all...
• Confirmed: She experiences it in "The Witchfinders".

Or, there won't be any "historical" episodes of that sort.

Thereby avoiding the problem of the previous WMG.

• Jossed. February 2018 casting news suggested that says there will be a story involving the Civil Rights Movement and specifically Rosa Parks (which would be set in the American South of The '50s / The '60s), and the subsequent reveal by Alan Cumming that he'll be appearing as King James I has quashed this WMG for good.

The first episode will have the Doctor reveal herself to be female.

And will probably say something like "Yes it's really me. So what of it?" while seemingly looking at the camera.

• Jossed — The Gender Bender is pointed out to her, as she's amnesiac at the time. She takes it well.

Graham will be some sort of teacher to Ryan and Yasmin.

Maybe a weird college professor?

• Jossed — He's Ryan's step-grandfather and a retired bus driver. Yasmin, in the meantime, was an old school chum of Ryan's.

There will be a UNIT episode.

Considering that the Twelfth Doctor promised Captain Lethbridge-Stewart to look after his descendants, it raises the possibility of Kate Stewart returning, since the Brig kept on making appearances even as the cast/crew changed in the Classic Series.

• Jossed, and "Resolution" has a mention of UNIT being shut down.

Series 11's Story Arc will be the Doctor searching for, or waiting for, her TARDIS, and thus be entirely set on Earth in The Present Day

With Thirteen falling out of the exploding TARDIS — a situation that may or may not be an actual ejection on the capsule's part — over what's most likely contemporary London, there's no telling what will become of her or the wounded TARDIS as of the Cliffhanger. Perhaps the season premiere will reveal it's now lost, leaving the Thirteenth Doctor stuck where she is just like the Third Doctor was old monsters in Season 7, his first season. Since she currently has no relationship with the Time Lords even as an exile/prisoner, she has no other obvious options for getting off-Earth. She will either have to seek Ol' Sexy out or wait for it to return to her, most likely getting it back no sooner than the Season Finale.

Being limited to contemporary Earth would be an easy justification for no less than three new regular associates/companions for the Doctor, plus a recurring character, being introduced at once; easier on the show's budget at a time when it isn't the money-spinner for the BBC that it used to be (which was one reason it was done back in the day); an easy way to avoid No Equal-Opportunity Time Travel (see above); a major shake-up to the franchise dramatically, and an easy hook for a season-long Story Arc. It would also be a great excuse to bring back UNIT, as suggested above — they were introduced along with the Third Doctor, after all — and have some bridge between this era and previous ones.

On the other hand, there are a lot of potential downsides to this concept. First, there would be Unfortunate Implications in having the first female Doctor also be the first in decades (and more specifically the revival era) to have to forgo adventures in all of time and space, raising complaints of being too tied-down to Earth and especially London that have dogged the revival almost since the beginning (but especially in Series 2 and 8 — coincidentally also Doctor debut seasons). With as many as ten stories to tell episode-by-episode, rather than the four serialized stories of Season 7, how many different, sudden alien invasions and hidden mysterious threats can present-day Earth — and more specifically London — take in a single season? And the Third Doctor at least had his TARDIS around in his early seasons. Would the show forgo its most iconic icon at a time when no characters from previous seasons look to be appearing (and if they do, probably will be kept secret until airing)?

• Looking unlikely, first with the February 2018 news that there will likely be a story involving Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement, and second with Alan Cumming revealing he'll be playing King James I in a 17th century-set episode. So the Doctor might go TARDIS-less for the first few episodes but no more, or — as discussed below — she'll access an alternative means of time-and-space travel and the Story Arc will be her quest to find the TARDIS.
• The first trailer explicitly shows at least two alien planets, one with a green sky and another with three suns, and a few shots that appear to be set in the '50s, making the "stuck on present-day Earth" part of this theory jossed.
• Jossed in the sense of not being stuck in the present day, but as of the Cliffhanger of "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" the TARDIS is still missing in action and the Doctor is trying to track it down.
• Completely Jossed. The TARDIS is located at the end of episode 2, which is set on an alien world.

At the top of the Series 11 premiere, the Thirteenth Doctor will survive her fall/be rescued from it by...

• Being within the post-regeneration period of time where any and all wounds quickly heal, ala how Ten got his "fighting hand" in "The Christmas Invasion".
  • Confirmed. She lands in a stopped train and recovers from that immediately, though she does take a nap later.
• The TARDIS, having dematerialized and had its "sulk" elsewhere/when to repair the damage the regeneration caused while keeping the Doctor herself safe, materializing right behind her to catch her — revealing the new console room in the process.
• The TARDIS tossing her something to help her out — a parachute, grappling hook, jetpack, etc.
• The Doctor flying back into the TARDIS with the help of her key, as with Twelve's stunt in "Death in Heaven". Note: This and the previous possibility assume that the TARDIS did not actually dematerialize at the end of "Twice Upon a Time", which would contradict on-screen evidence.
• An old or new alien race flying in to help out. Mega-bonus points if it's a Time Lord/Lady because aside from the Master/Missy (who is probably not coming back for Series 11 either as Missy or her next incarnation) there haven't been any other Time Lords established as zipping across time and space since the revival began, with the implication that they're all hiding out on Gallifrey near the end of time. This would be an interesting time to introduce an old or new Time Lord character. (Clara Oswald and Me are also an option because they have a TARDIS and Thirteen will now recognize both of them, but it's really unlikely Chibnall will bring them back.)
• Landing on or in a passing airplane, hot air balloon, etc. Bonus points if the new companions are inside!
• Lands in a pool or in a river. Sure, the impact will be bad, but again they'll probably utilize the "post-regeneration fifteen hours" thing that helped Ten regrow his hand, and helped River survive getting shot at by Nazis.
• Use the sonic screwdriver, destroying it in the process. This will be why she needs the yellow one.
  • Jossed — She simply lost the old sonic and everything else in her pockets in the fall.

River Song will return for one story, in which the Doctor will tell her his name.

However, it won't be apparent that it's her at first, because it will be a different regeneration.

The Doctor stated that only children can hear and understand his name. River Song knew his name, and said that she'd "made him tell" her what it was. That means the Doctor had to have told River his name when she was a child. This could be the first River, who escaped from the orphanage. It could be the River who she regenerated into at the end of "Day of the Moon". Or, it could be the Mel regeneration who grew up with her parents. It's possible that the last two are one and the same, except that it would be difficult for a child to arrange to get herself to a small town in England, plus the timing is off — the first regeneration was in 1969, and Amy and Rory would have grown up in the 90s. (First Amy episode was in 2010.) So either there was another regeneration between the first and Mels....or Mels got a lift from America 1969 to Leadworth in the early 90s.

But why wouldn't River remember meeting a female Doctor, and thus know that more regenerations were possible? Either she never learned who the Doctor was, and was transported unconscious....or the time lines were out of synch, because there was another, older regeneration also present. Thus, we get an appearance by the River Song regeneration and her younger self. We've done multi-Doctor and multi-Master, why not multi-River? She could be a download from the Library, or be from during the 24-years-night on Darillium.

Now, if only we can get Moffat to write one episode (or two-parter) for the Chibnall era....

• Except River doesn't have to understand the Doctor's name to know it. She could repeat the sound of it without comprehending the same meaning to it that a child would.
• This would finally provide an explanation for Ten's statement in "Forest of the Dead" that, "There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could!"
• Highly unlikely, due to Chibnall's claim that Series 11 will not feature any previously appearing characters.
• Jossed.

Due to the Doctor changing gender, there will be at least one instance of Actually, That's My Assistant with a male companion or Bruce Wayne Held Hostage with a villain.

• The Sontarans would actually be a great villain to do this with, since they're a One-Gender Race with members who have been shown to have sexist viewpoints ... thus making them considerably more likely to mistake one of the male companions for the Doctor.
  • Jossed, unfortunately.
  • Also, who says the Sontarans would even realize that Jodie Whittaker's Doctor was a woman? Mistaking people's genders is one of the better Running Gags for their species in New Who.
    • That gag is specific to Strax, who notably didn't have this problem before his death and resurrection and is a known cloudcuckoolander. So, should Thirteen ever meet the Sontarans, I wouldn't automatically assume they won't be able to tell she's female.
• Partially confirmed. In "The Witchfinders", the Doctor initially poses as the Witchfinder General, but when the King arrives he assumes the Doctor is the assistant and Graham is the general. However, there's no major production of things.

The Doctor will meet Madame Vastra, who will flirt (or more) with her.

She already flirted with Clara, and now that the Doctor finally has an incarnation she could find attractive, who knows what will happen...

• Oi! Married!
• Again, Chibnall claims there won't be any previously appearing characters.
• Jossed.

There will be an issue with the "John Smith" thing.

Obviously, that's not going to work for a woman Doctor, so there's a variety of ways that could play out. Including her not even realizing why, at first.

• Oh, maybe she'll call herself Sarah Jane Smith!
• Jossed, the Doctor does not use a "Smith" alias this season.

The Thirteenth Doctor will eat a pear.

And she'll like it!

• Jossed, no pears this season.

One of the Doctor's new Companions will turn out to be Missy, regenerated.

Missy knew enough about her prior self to know to take precautions against the sonic lance's blocking her from regenerating. She really did make a Heel–Face Turn in the end, and that choice was foremost in her mind when her new self was formed. S/he knew that the Doctor would never accept him/her as truly good if she knew who s/he was, so s/he arranged to meet and befriend her under a different identity, to allow her to get to know and trust him/her before finding out who s/he used to be. At the end of the season, the now-beloved Companion will be revealed to have been Missy all along. Whether the Doctor will truly accept the Heel–Face Turn as real will likely depend on whether s/he ends up making a Heroic Sacrifice and dying in the Doctor's arms...

• Again, Chibnall claims there won't be any previously appearing characters. In addition, given that the Master was a recurring character during Twelve's run, it's likely the showrunners are going to give them a break for now.
  • The circumstances surrounding the new companions appear to have Jossed this one. Yaz and Ryan knew each other in school days, and Graham is Ryan's step-grandfather.
  • Totally jossed at the end of the season.

We will finally find out who/what the Minister of War is.

This was mentioned in "Before the Flood" as an important event in the history of Earth before 2119. The Doctor didn't recognise the term, but he assumed he'll eventually find out what it is.

• Chibnall has said he wants Series 11 to be a Jumping-On Point with a focus on newly-introduced elements. While this doesn't preclude an appearance by the Minister of War, it seems likely given these statements that they won't focus on a mention from a three-year-old episode, especially as there are no two-parters this year.
• Maybe the Minister of War is connected to the Stenza.
• Jossed.

Series 11's Story Arc will be the Doctor searching for her TARDIS but having to use other means of time travel in order to find it

Who knows where or when the TARDIS dematerialized off to? This could also explain her new sonic screwdriver, which looks more handcrafted then other previous designs. She had to make it without the TARDIS. This would also be similar to Season 12 of Classic Who, where the 4th Doctor in his first series only used the TARDIS twice, once to get on the Nerva Beacon and once at the end of the season to get back to Earth. In that season the Doctor and his companions used teleporters and a time-ring to travel from story to story.

• Or she could use a vortex manipulator, ala Captain Jack Harkness and Missy — giving a great excuse to work one or even both (!) of them into a story.
• Or another Time Lord could pitch in to help.
• The first trailer has the TARDIS noticeably absent …
• The TARDIS is also missing in the second trailer. In fact, all of the promotional material involving the Thirteenth Doctor and this season, starting with her reveal video, long before the cliffhanger of "Twice Upon a Time" was known, has the TARDIS either absent or in the background, at a distance.
  • Confirmed. She rigs up the new sonic on her own. At the end of "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" she also rigs up a device to follow the TARDIS energy signal and teleports herself — and, by accident, Yazmin, Ryan, and Graham — to somewhere in the depths of space for the Cliffhanger. Will they find it in "The Ghost Monument"?
    • Partially confirmed: it's a part of the plot for the first two episodes, but is located at the end of "The Ghost Monument". The actual arc looks to be shaping up as something else.

The old sonic screwdriver will be destroyed...

Because the Doctor has to use it to break her fall somehow.

• Jossed. She simply lost it — and everything else that was in her pockets — in her fall from the TARDIS.

In the King James I episode...

• The Doctor will be mistaken for a witch. That James had a phobia of witches is historical fact (hence why the line "suffer not a witch to live" is in the King James Bible), so it's perfectly plausible that he might assume the Doctor to be one, especially since it would be fairly easy for her to come off as one either accidentally or intentionally. Or the Doctor's use of high-tech "magic" to foil a nasty scheme in which James is involved will cause his subsequent enmity for witches.
  • Confirmed; King James assumes that the Doctor is a witch responsible for the Monsters of the Week and sentences her to the ducking stool.
• The Doctor will mention knowing Queen Elizabeth I. Since she was James' predecessor on the English throne, and since the Doctor does occasionally bring up historical figures s/he's met before, this would be perfect. Perhaps the Doctor will mention being married to Elizabeth I. As a result, the companions will erroneously assume that she was a lesbian. The Mistaken for Gay part is looking unlikely however, since the Doctor has freely mentioned her Gender Bender to her companions, so they are perfectly aware she used to be a man.
  • Jossed; the Doctor never mentions her relationship with Elizabeth.

There will be giant frogs

The novelization of "Rose" expands the scene where Clive shows Rose pictures of the Doctor throughout history, including a moment where he shows her a picture of Thirteen being chased by a giant frog outside Buckingham Palace. If we're very lucky, this won't stay a Noodle Incident forever.

• The Solitract takes the appearance of a frog in "It Takes You Away", but it may not be related.
• And... jossed for this season.

The time-rift things that appeared in the July 15 teaser will appear on the show

In the teaser, the Doctor uses the time-rift things to essentially troll Ryan, Yasmin and Graham by appearing to stop time and, respectively, apparently swiping some of Ryan's food, giving Yasmin another pizza and swapping out Graham's newspaper for an issue of The Beano. Now, generally speaking Time Lords, and particularly the Doctor, have never been shown to have an ability like this before. So, if the time-rift things are part of the plot of the season, there are several options for what exactly they are.

• There's something wrong with time on Earth (again) and these rifts are being caused by whatever's behind it.
• The Doctor's built another time-travel device to use while she looks for the TARDIS (see above guesses), which is both causing the time-stop effect and is how she can just appear and disappear like that.
  • This is jossed as the TARDIS is recovered at the end of the second episode.

The Story Arc will culminate in the Doctor reconciling with the Time Lords and possibly feature a return to Gallifrey

Aside from the alternate, ultimately undone timeline of the comic book miniseries Doctor Who: Supremacy of the Cybermen, the Doctor has not been to post-Time War Gallifrey since the events of "Hell Bent", which is about a century for her in the televised timeline and even longer if the Expanded Universe is taken into account. With all of Twelve's companions done and dusted, surely Thirteen misses her homeworld, and the Time Lords can't/shouldn't hold a grudge against the savior they so cruelly betrayed and caused to have a really off day. So the climax of the season will involve one side helping the other — if it's a case of a missing TARDIS, perhaps they help her get it back; if they're in danger, she steps in to help, etc — and reconciling their situations. Beyond it being dramatically satisfying, it would be an easy way for Chibnall and company to get a leg up with fans by finally doing an epic Gallifrey-set story after so many were let down by how the setting and Time Lords were used in "Hell Bent".

• Chibnall claims that Series 11 will be focusing on all-new elements, explicitly including locations. With that in mind, a return to Gallifrey seems unlikely this year.
• Jossed.

The TARDIS didn't crash because the Doctor held back regenerating too long (or at least not just because of that); it's because of... your guesses here!

Paul Cornell's Novelization of "Twice Upon a Time" teases in its final chapter and epilogue that it may not just have been the Doctor's violent regeneration that caused the TARDIS to crash even more spectacularly than happened with the previous two regenerations. Rather, it was something wrong with the TARDIS itself, which is why the Cloister Bell started ringing and console started smoking before Twelve became Thirteen — it was trying to warn them. It also suggests that the TARDIS intentionally tossed Thirteen out so she wouldn't be destroyed. What might the REAL problem be, which will become crucial to the Series 11 premiere and/or Story Arc? It might be...

• Someone/something sabotaging it from within or without when the Twelfth Doctor wasn't around, or even when he was — possibly even attacking while he was regenerating and the TARDIS was in the time vortex:
  • Missy, during/post-"Empress of Mars"
  • The next incarnation of the Master, if Missy's Heel–Face Turn didn't hold out
  • The Time Lords
  • The Black Guardian
  • The Daleks
  • The Valeyard
  • A new antagonist, perhaps the season's Big Bad
  • A neutral or good force that accidentally or mistakenly saw the Doctor as a foe
• A symptom of a larger problem in the space-time continuum, ala the cracks in Series 5, and which may or may not be an Evil Plan at work; could in fact be the time rifts that appeared in the Series 11 teaser (see above).
• A sign that the TARDIS itself is wearing a bit thin after so many millennia with the Doctor.

Chibnall is lying about there being no old characters

Chibnall saw the tendency of earlier seasons to have plot twists spoiled by the reporting, so he decided to lie in order to preserve the twists.

• Jossed, it seems it was instead an Exact Words as a Dalek appeared right after the year and season ended. Nothing else appeared in the main series.

The Season Finale and Christmas Episode will be one and the same

There's only been talk of ten episodes — nothing about the annual Christmas show, which is regarded as a separate special. Given that "Twice Upon a Time" was made specifically to provide a Christmas special for 2017 and not lose the show's annual holiday slot when Chibnall decided not to use it as the debut for Thirteen (Moffat originally planned "The Doctor Falls" to be the Grand Finale for Twelve), something has to fill the slot this year. The confirmation that Series 11 doesn't arrive until sometime in October — a very late start for a Who season even with only ten episodes — suggests that rather than have the Christmas show be a special, it will double as the Season Finale and Did I Mention It's Christmas? will be in play again.

• Unlikely, since Chibnall and Strevens indirectly confirmed that there was a Christmas special at SDCC 2018 by joking about how they seemed to be filming an extra eleventh episode when asked about a Christmas special.
• Jossed, and it's not a Christmas special anyways.

Alternatively, there will be no more Christmas episodes

It would be another big break from the revival's norm to drop the Christmas special tradition altogether, especially since the Moffat era used up most of the obvious iconography and concepts for Who Christmas adventures (Yet Another Christmas Carol, Santa Claus, snowmen, trees, the Christmas Truce, etc.) and Did I Mention It's Christmas? became standard after "Last Christmas".

• Unlikely, see above.
  • Confirmed, and for the exact same reason! Chibnall ran out of ideas for a Christmas special, and we will get a New Year's special instead.

The show will actually premiere in late September.

Although a thing from last year said that Series 11 would arrive in October, there's been nothing else said about the premiere date. It could very well be arriving in late September, in a situation similar to Series 9.

• Right, scratch that, the BBC just said it is premiering in October. So, new likely premiere date: October 6.
  • Specifically, they said it was premiering by October. So, again, I'm guessing October 6 as the latest possible likely premiere date.
    • Apparently, the show is now switching to Sundays, and will premiere on October 7th.

Characters from some of the spinoffs will appear.

Chibnall was Torchwood's showrunner, and the audience was Left Hanging with Class. Chibnall's declaration of "no characters who appeared on the show" will be Exact Words, since these characters haven't appeared on Doctor Who before.

• Jossed.

Another woman "fell to earth"

The first episode has been confirmed as "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", which seems to refer to the Doctor. However, it could be a Double-Meaning Title that refers to either Yasmin or the villain of the episode, who also "fell to earth" somehow.

• Confirmed... Rest in peace, Grace O'Brien.

The Christmas special will not have "Christmas" in the title

A titling pattern has emerged in which a Doctor's first Christmas special will have the holiday named in the title: "The Christmas Invasion", "A Christmas Carol", "Last Christmas". However, given the two factors of a) Chibnall's efforts to really shake things up, and b) the fact that the Christmas specials have been less Christmassy of late, the 2018 CS will not do this.

• It's not actually a Christmas special at all.

The location in the "glass ceiling" teaser will appear.

• Jossed.

One of the companions will be revealed to be More than Meets the Eye.

All information shown about them so far suggests they are ordinary humans from present-day Earth. However, it's possible that one of them could be hiding something, such as a previous connection to aliens or maybe being fully or partly non-human themselves, which will be revealed at a climactic moment.

• Looking unlikely as of "The Woman Who Fell to Earth". They're all pretty credulous about aliens once they encounter them but there are no hints any have had previous experiences with such.
• Jossed.

The Doctor and King James I will engage in Ham-to-Ham Combat.

Because the Doctor is a notorious Large Ham and James is played by Alan Cumming. We should expect nothing less. And there will be accusations of witchcraft.

• Jossed, although James does ham it up.

Ryan, Yaz and Graham become the companions because they happen to be near where the Doctor crash-lands.

The synopsis for "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" kind of hints in that direction.

• In addition, they will be at or near the locations they're seen at in the World Cup teaser when they hear or see the Doctor landing.
• Confirmed — Graham and Grace were on a stopped train and Ryan and Yaz were just arriving to help them when the Doctor landed in it. Moreover, Graham is Ryan's step-grandfather and Yaz an old school chum of Ryan's, so there's reason for them to stick together.

The boxy brown spaceship seen in the second trailer is our heroes' alternate transportation.

Tying in with the theories above that the TARDIS will be missing for most of the season, and that the season's Story Arc, such as it is, is about looking for the TARDIS, the Doctor and company will travel in this ship for several episodes.

• Jossed: The spaceship belongs to one of the guest characters of "The Ghost Monument", and the TARDIS is recovered by the end of that episode.

There's no Story Arc at all, or at most it will be much less significant than usual.

Chibnall's said that the ten episodes will all be standalone stories, making this the first season since Series 7 without a multi-parter (and even 7B had the "Impossible Girl"/Great Intelligence arc). Between this and the promise of no returning characters or settings from previous seasons (meaning no need for an Info Dump on their prior significance stretching out a script), it's possible that only a few elements (say, seeking the TARDIS) will be stretched over a few episodes if any.

• Unlikely. Chibnall said series 11 would tell "one big story".
  • Jossed with the TARDIS still missing in action at the end of "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" and the Doctor (and, inadvertently, her not-yet-companions) heading out to find it via a new device. With episode two ("The Ghost Monument") the first off-world adventure and episode three confirmed as the Civil Rights Movement episode and thus the first quasi-historical story, that's two episodes that don't have to end with getting the TARDIS back and returning the companions to modern Sheffield.
• Further Jossed by "The Ghost Monument". Although the TARDIS is found by the end of the episode, it's revealed that the Stenza, the species of the antagonist of "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", are responsible for the episode's setting being turned into a Death World, and there's an implication we haven't seen the last of them. Also, there's mention of a "Timeless Child" which seems significant.
• At the same time, confirmed. Apart from the villain of "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" returning in "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos", there is no real arc this season.

Post-release theories (unmarked spoilers)

General

None of this season is real.

It's all a dream and the entire season, Whittaker, etc. will be completely retconned with the next show runner.

The TARDIS will be practically unsteerable.

IF the TARDIS is found within the first few episodes, there will be some major issues with her (possibly connected to why she went haywire in the first place) that will result in the Doctor being even less able to steer her properly than is usually the case, resulting in the companions not getting home until near the end of the season.

• Jossed.

When the TARDIS exploded, the Doctor was accidentally transported to an alternate Earth in an alternate universe

All the human characters the Doctor meets in "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" are sceptical of the idea of extraterrestrial beings on Earth, with Graham even claiming that there's no such thing as aliens. This seems to make no sense, as in the last 10+ years there have been at least four worldwide alien invasions (which undoubtedly affected Sheffield too), as well as several other attacks on London that were widely televised. The only way this can be explained is if the Doctor fell on alternate Earth where none of those invasions and attacks ever happened.

• It's been discussed numerous times in the show that contemporary humanity has a tendency to ignore, handwave or just forget about even the most blatant signs of alien life over time - additionally, only Graham directly denies that aliens exist. Ryan suggests aliens early on, and Karl only denies that aliens would show up in Sheffield, so it could just be chalked up to Graham being old and a bit of a curmudgeon.
• Some further evidence towards this theory can be found in "The Ghost Monument", where it's revealed the Stenza have a large, long-standing empire which has conquered parts of the Twelve Galaxies, yet the Doctor hadn't heard of them before. Maybe such an Empire didn't exist in the Doctor's native universe, which would explain her ignorance? Also, the TARDIS being locked in dematerialisation loop could be explained by her trying to adjust to the alternate universe. As we saw in "Rise of the Cybermen", normally the TARDIS wouldn't be able to use the energies of an alternate universe at all, but maybe the fact that she was partially destroyed while being transported there allowed her to regenerate in a form that could draw power from the parallel universe?
• On the other hand, the universe is a very big place, and Tzim-Sha is said to have been transported to Earth from 5,000 galaxies away. So they are a threat, but it's more plausible that the Doctor's never heard of them.
• Except that the Doctor knows the Twelve Galaxies, since she offered to take Ace on a trip around them in "Dragonfire", so it's a bit odd she wouldn't know about the Stenza having conquered them.
  • It could be a different Twelve Galaxies. There are billions of galaxies, after all.

The Doctor in Series 11 is already on the way to The Valeyard, and will turn evil after her companions die

So far, she's been more positively portrayed than her Nu Who predecessors, in spite of her anger at Krasko. That won't last, a Break the Cutie moment is coming. The contrast will be used to give us the evil side of the Doctor in the most interesting way possible.

• Alternatively, her being more able to healthily process her grief and trauma compared to her predecessors will be why the Valeyard becomes a separate entity - utilising a moment where she's at her lowest point to free themselves, a manifestation of the darkness the Doctor is now on the path away from.

"The Woman Who Fell to Earth"

Grace O'Brien will appear again in some fashion

As the AV Club review of "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" pointed out, Grace was announced as a "returning role", yet she dies in the climax of this episode and part of the denouement takes place at her memorial service. While reviewer Caroline Siede entertained the theory that this was simply to hide Grace's fate, she also wondered if she might be brought back either in flashbacks or even come Back from the Dead at some point in the season. Alternatively, Grace could be impersonated by a shapeshifter, turn out to have an Alternate Universe counterpart, etc.

• The Alternate Universe counterpart theory may have some evidence to back it up. For a while before the premiere, Sharon D. Clarke's character was thought to be named Mary, and Clarke herself even referred to the character as such during a radio interview. This might have been obfuscation to avoid revealing the character's real name, but it could also mean that the TARDIS team will visit another reality where another version of Grace is alive, but named Mary instead.
  • Or she could be playing her own relative, perhaps in the Rosa Parks story if some of her family were American.
• Confirmed. Grace appears as a figment of Graham's imagination in Episode 4. In episode 9, she is impersonated by the Solitract.

The energy the Doctor expelled will become the Valeyard.

She expels regeneration energy on the sofa which floated off, this energy will become the Valeyard, who will be the villain of the Christmas special or series 12.

• As much as it'd be neat for this to be true... probably not. The Doctor breathing out the extra regeneration energy is the exact same effect that happened with the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor, making it more likely just a Continuity Nod.

The Doctor will, after getting the TARDIS back, rescue the Stenza's trophies.

The Doctor's new Sonic Screwdriver will have some teething issues.

The Doctor bodged it together using primitive 21st century Earth materials with maybe a little Stemza tech mixed in. It's probably going to malfunction on occasion, prompting the Doctor to repair and upgrade it with available alien tech until she finds the TARDIS and can do a proper job with her preferred tech level.

The teleporter did send the Doctor and company to the location of the TARDIS, but...

She's somehow out of phase. (This theory comes to us courtesy of ScreenRant.) At one point in that scene, a flash of light is seen that looks like the TARDIS' windows. It's possible that the damage to the TARDIS has resulted in her being, for whatever reason, out of phase with the rest of the universe. Or the flash of light is just a flash of light. We'll see.

• Actually kind of confirmed, but not in the way the theory guessed: the teleporter, apart from bringing along Graham, Ryan and Yaz, sent everyone to the right place. However, Desolation, the planet the TARDIS could be found on, had recently been knocked out of its old orbit, which is why they were left drifting in deep space. The TARDIS became known as the "Ghost Monument" when the planet was inhabited because it was stuck in a materialization loop where it would appear, half-materialized, once every thousand years.

"The Ghost Monument"

The Stenza will become the Big Bad of the series.

A now-deleted article on the Radio Times website claimed there will be references to the Stenza in the second episode, "The Ghost Monument", that establish them as a nastier, more pervasive threat than previously indicated.

• Confirmed, in the sense that there are more references to the Stenza in this episode: they're responsible for both the genocide against Angstrom's people and the ruin of Desolation's ecosystem and elimination of its populace, the latter via forced WMD development and testing. The theory that they would become the Big Bad of the series is Jossed, however. Tzim-Sha does appear again in the series finale, but we've yet to see any other Stenza, or their empire.

The TARDIS is the titular "Ghost Monument".

• Also Confirmed: it's been phasing in and out of Time due to its damaged condition.

"The Timeless Child" mentioned by the cloth creatures will turn out to be...

It has a connection to the Doctor, as the mind-reading creatures learn of it when they go after her — "the outcast, abandoned and unknown". They also seem to know things about it that she doesn't, suggesting she may have forgotten it — or doesn't know its fate. If it isn't simply a reference to the Doctor's lonely past as suggested in "Listen" and "Hell Bent", then what is it?

• If it's a previously-established character, it's...
  • "[A]n early, forgotten regeneration of the Doctor" as suggested at the AV Club review of the episode, ala the War Doctor coming between Eight and Nine. Could they be who Missy was talking about when she told Clara she knew the Doctor since they were a little girl in "The Magician's Apprentice"? The lie was apparently the stuff about the moon and the President's wife, after all, to go by the Doctor's claims in "Hell Bent".
    • That would go against the established fact that Time Lords can only regenerate 12 times, since all of the Doctor's incarnations before he was given a new set of regenerations are accounted for. As of "The Day of the Doctor", the only time we haven't seen him regenerate from one body to another onscreen is when the War Doctor started to regenerate, as we didn't see him turn into Nine. So technically there would be a space there to add a new incarnation between him and Nine, but then they would have to break the rule of 12 (as well as explain why the Doctor doesn't remember this incarnation, of course).
    • Except that when War regenerated, we could clearly see him start to become Nine before the scene changed.
    • Maybe that's what Timeless Child means. Maybe the Doctor was born as a girl lacking any Time Lord essence — hence "timeless" — so no time-awareness, no extended lifespan, and no regeneration. Eventually they managed to turn that child into a proper Time Lord through a regeneration-like process, and that boy became the proper First Doctor, with a regeneration count at 0.
    • Confirmed, The Timeless Child is in fact the collective name for the pre-Hartnell incarnations of the Doctor. The Doctor is in fact not subject to the 12-regeneration limit, as she is not really a Time Lord but something much older and stranger.
    • Alternativly it's not a prior itteration but literally the Doctor as a child.
  • Susan Foreman. On the other hand, the Doctor definitely remembers her.
  • An incarnation of the Master, and not necessarily a post-Missy one.
  • Adric, one of the very few children who ever traveled with the Doctor long-term. Maybe he didn't die and resented that the Doctor never came back for him, and he found some other way to get around space and time?
  • Grace O'Brien. Surprise!
  • The Valeyard
  • Davros
• If it's an all-new character...
  • The REAL Hybrid. Sure, Steven Moffat said it really was the Doctor and Clara together, but...
  • A previously-unmentioned family member of the Doctor. If it's one of their own children, the mother could be the Doctor's original wife (Susan had to come from somewhere), River Song (during the 24 years on Darillium), or someone new to the mythos.
  • The Doctor BEFORE they were the Doctor, ala The Other in the Virgin New Adventures novels.
    • The Doctor before becoming the Doctor, aka the little boy Clara found crying in the barn.
  • The Doctor's child/Susan Foreman's parent. Susan is the Doctor's granddaughter, so by definition the Doctor must have a son or daughter that'd go on to father/mother Susan. Ever since the Second Doctor, their family has been treated as MIA/disconnected/dead, so they showing up would be quite the Wham Episode. And given how long the Doctor has been separated from them, of course they'd be terrified and hide that deep inside of themselves. Plus everyone who knows about Susan Foreman has been wondering what the hell happened to her, and especially the link between the two generations.
  • The Minister of War

"Rosa"

The Civil Rights Movement episode will be a pure historical.

As part of Chibnall's show-shaking-up mandate, there will finally be a pure historical adventure in NewWho. Now that the bean-counters have lifted the restriction of the characters having to fight some kind of antagonist every week, they don't have to work science fantasy elements into this setting, which would be hard to do without coming off as tacky anyway (especially at a time when race relations around the world are in similarly poor shape). Alternatively, there will be antagonists, but they'll just be ordinary humans.

• The synopsis for "Rosa" says that the main characters "discover a plot to change the course of history". It's possible that the antagonists could be human time travellers who are trying to Make Wrong What Once Went Right.
• Jossed: The antagonist of the episode is a time-traveling racist who's trying to throw off the course of history by disrupting Rosa's famous bus ride.

Krasko will return

He was just displaced. He'll come back, and maybe team up with the Stenza at some point.

When Krasko told Ryan that he was going to prevent "his kind" from stepping above "their place", he didn't mean black people specifically. He meant humanity as a whole.

He seems to be human, but we don't know for sure. Maybe he isn't - he might even be Time Lord. Pretty much all we know about him is that he was a mass murderer in the far future, was imprisoned in Stormcage (which admittedly is weak evidence for him being human), and that he knows at least some things about Time Lord technology (which is at least suspicious). So what if he isn't human, and in fact wants to prevent humanity from becoming a galactic power? He might target civil rights movements because he sees them as important steps towards humanity's eventual unification. I think that would be an interesting twist - him still being racist, but against humanity as a whole and not just against black people.

"Arachnids in the UK"

The Eight-Legs of Metebelis III are BACK!

• The last time the Doctor dealt with giant spiders was in the third incarnation's memorable Grand Finale, "Planet of the Spiders", where the titular arachnids were a psychic alien species attempting to invade the Earth and regain the crystal that the Doctor had stolen from them. Could this episode then in fact be their long-awaited return to the series?
  • Jossed, they’re actually domestic spiders made bigger by people Playing with Syringes.

Robertson will return... and get his comeuppance

After his shady business practices and Bad Boss tendencies, he deserves it. One possibility is that he may turn up on a news report, after the Doctor sent evidence of his behaviour to officials, and he's getting arrested.

• Confirmed he will return at least; apparently he's showing up in the new year's special, "Revolution of the Daleks". Whether he gets comeuppance is yet to be seen.

Jack Robertson is J.K. Robertson from Time Chasers

Their names and personalities are virtually identical and they're not too far apart physically. Robertson says in the episode that he has several companies so it's possible GenCorp is one of them. Since the film ends with a revised timeline in which Robertson is still alive, maybe he expanded his corporate empire to the point where he became a viable presidential candidate.

Robertson and Krasko will end up working together

Krasko is a futuristic racist while Robertson is a thinly-veiled parody of Donald Trump, who is frequently criticized for being racist.

• They will also work with the Stenza.

Robertson is the new incarnation of the Master or the Master in disguise

The Master has been elected Prime Minister before while in disguise, so this would not be unprecedented.

• Very likely jossed, as Thirteen faced off against a very different incarnation of the Master in the next season.

"The Tsuranga Conundrum"

At some point, the gang will meet someone named Avocado Pear.

There are 46 centuries between the present day and Yoss' time so it's entirely possible that there will be someone named Avocado Pear.

Alternately, one of the gang is Avocado Pear.

Maybe they need an alias and it's a Line-of-Sight Name.

"Demons of the Punjab"

The Stenza were the ones who killed off the Thijarans

It would make a lot of sense to have this be another notch in the belt of the new Arc Villain.

"Kerblam!"

The message asking for help

So the Doctor's package contains a message for help from someone inside the factory. The question is, how did the message wind up in the package intended for the Doctor?

• It's a Contrived Coincidence: they only sent out one request for help, and it just happened to go to the Doctor, someone who can help them.
• The sender put the message in as many different deliveries as possible, to ensure a wide distribution in the hopes that one of those people would respond, and the Doctor is therefore one of many recipients.
• The Doctor was deliberately targeted by the message, as the sender has heard of her in some way before, and figures she might help.
  • Confirmed: the message was sent by the Kerblam! system AI, which is strongly indicated to have heard of the Doctor's reputation.

This episode's replacement with "The Witchfinders" on Amazon Video was intentional

Amazon was trying to censor "Kerblam!" for being anti-Amazon.

"The Witchfinders"

The Stenza imprisoned the Morax

This connection could be good to make. Since the Morax committed war crimes, maybe it was a case of Even Evil Has Standards.

"It Takes You Away"

Ribbons was a Stenza

He looked somewhat similar to Tzim-Sha, although without teeth on his face. There could be a connection somehow.

The Doctor's family had a lot of divorce and remarriage

This makes more sense than the Bizarre Alien Reproduction explanation for the "seven grannies", honestly.

The Doctor has seven grandmothers because...

Besides the above "divorce and remarriage" option...

• Bizarre Alien Reproduction.
• The grandmothers were from multiple generations, including great-grandmothers, great-great-grandmothers, etc., and it was normal for all ancestors in those positions to simply be called grandparents for simplicity purposes, since Time Lords are so long-lived.
• Multiple regenerations of a smaller number of individuals.
• "Granny", in Gallifreyan society, is a catch-all term for "elderly female loved one known in childhood", regardless of whether or not they're biologically related.

One of the Doctor's grannies was a female incarnation of K'anpo

Because that actually would make a whole lot of sense, especially if the above WMG that granny means "non-related elderly female loved one" is true.

The Solitract crisis was manipulated by Omega

• Considering that Series 12 is teasing some more exploration of Gallifrey, Omega could appear as a new villain. Since he's associated with Antimatter, maybe it will turn out he was behind the events of It Takes You Away.

The Solitract was foreshadowing what the Doctor will do with her companions

The revival has played with the idea that the Doctor is a bad influence on companions. Perhaps the Doctor will realize she is damaging her companions, and let them go as the Solitract let her go.

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