It's been a long time since fans have gotten any Doctor Who material to sink their teeth into. Season 12 wrapped up in March 2020. "Revolution of the Daleks," the New Year's Day special that appropriately aired on Jan. 1, 2021, chronicled the Doctor's last adventure. But now, after a long wait, the first teaser for Doctor Who's upcoming Season 13 was released during Comic-Con@Home. The first look at the show's next season was unveiled in a panel that featured current Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall and stars Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill and John Bishop.
During the panel, the quartet teased Season 13, all while remaining purposefully cryptic. But perhaps the biggest revelation was that Season 13, which will be comprised of eight episodes, will tell one long, overarching story. This is a huge change for the BBC series, and the new storytelling format could make this new season the show's biggest and best yet.
Doctor Who's Season 13 teaser trailer promises the Doctor's "biggest adventure yet," and that is no hyperbole. Indeed, during the Comic-Con@Home panel, Chibnall revealed that the eight episodes will all be part of the same story. The weekly adventures will end with cliffhangers that lead into the next, making the season an eight-part story. This is an ambitious endeavor for the series, and it's plenty of reason to get excited for what's to come.
Back when Chibnall and Whittaker took the reigns in 2018, it was rumored that the duo's first season together, Season 11, would feature one long story. At the time, this sounded like an interesting departure that would change things up in a big way -- but that ultimately wasn't the case. However, Season 13 will finally deliver on this rumor, giving fans something Doctor Who has never really done before. Sure, prior seasons of the BBC series have featured plenty of overarching storylines, from Season 1's Bad Wolf to Season 3's Harry Saxon to Season 5's crack in space and time. But in all of these cases, the overarching storylines were often just hidden mentions throughout multiple episodes until the big, multi-part finales.
Chibnall got close to delivering a season-long story in Season 12. While the season was comprised of ten episodes, six of them dealt with the overarching narrative, leaving only four episodes as standalone adventures. Now, the showrunner is going even bigger by having all eight episodes of Season 13 feed into the other as part of a single story. It is, indeed, the Doctor's biggest adventure yet.
After all, this new, season-long story will come on the heels of what can easily be described as Doctor Who's biggest twist ever. At the end of Season 12, the Doctor learned that she was the Timeless Child, a being from another universe with countless regenerations and essentially the originator of the Time Lords. This revelation blew the gates wide open, changing the core mythology of the series by introducing a plethora of new questions.
Now, there is no telling where the series will go next. The Doctor's life has been turned upside down, and there is, quite literally, an infinite number of storytelling possibilities, including whether Jo Martin's Doctor will return and if the Divison comes back to hunt down the Doctor. The biggest twist in Doctor Who's history is now followed by the series' biggest season yet, which means fans should get ready for something truly epic.
Doctor Who Series 13 will premiere on BBC in the United Kingdom and BBC America in the United States in late 2021.