'Doctor Who' Series 12 to Reintroduce Two-Part Stories and Series Arc, Producer Confirms

Doctor Who has been off our screens for nearly a year and it has only been until recently that news surrounding the upcoming series. Jodie Whittaker will be returning as the Thirteenth Doctor with her companions Bradley Walsh (Graham), Tosin Cole (Ryan) and Mandip Gill (Yaz).

Series 12 doesn’t have an official air date yet, but a BBC article revealed recently the show will return on New Year’s Day, however, this article was quickly edited and changed to “early 2020”. The 23rd of November saw the first trailer shared online, which went down extremely well with fans.

Now, it has been announced that two fan-favourite parts of the show will be reintroduced in Series 12: The Series Arc and the words “To Be Continued” will make their way back on screen again according to the Series Producer, Nikki Wilson.

In the new SFX magazine, which is now arriving through the letterboxes of subscribers, there is a Doctor Who section with a short interview with Nikki Wilson. The column has got fans excited as Nikki Wilson said there are “several two-parters” and there will be “more of a serial arc”.

Series 11 of the hit science-fiction show was Chris Chibnall’s first series as showrunner. Chibnall took the show down a more experimental path by having a series full of fresh, new monsters and villains rather than getting fan-favourites back. Not only that, the episodes were all standalone episodes (except for the very loose arc, which was added at last minute) instead of having the finale being two-parts.

During Steven Moffat’s era as showrunner (2010-2017), the show was full of two-part stories, with many being the finales of each series. Notable two-part stories are “Dark Water” & “Death in Heaven”, “Heaven Sent” & “Hell Bent”, and more recently, “World Enough and Time” & “The Doctor Falls”. Whilst there were no fully two-part stories in Series 11, there was a very loose arc in the recent series evolving around Tzim Sha.

Another key aspect of Doctor Who is the story arc running through each series, leading up to an explosive finale at the end. The build-up of Torchwood, the return of Rose Tyler and he will knock four times; there have been many fantastic series arcs since the revival in 2005.

A memorable series arc is the one featured in Series 8 – the introduction of Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor – where a mysterious woman kept cropping up at the end of many episodes, leading to a big reveal. As Missy kept popping up here and there, it was revealed in part one of the finale “Dark Water” that Missy was in fact the Master regenerated into a woman.

With the series arc being absent in Series 11, the show felt a bit empty, however, with the arc now being reintroduced, it seems fans are in for a treat as the next series kicks off next year.

The new series is expected to be a step up from the eleventh series with many familiar villains storming back to our screens. Both the Judoon and the Cybermen will be stomping back into the show for Series 12. This is the Judoon’s first full story since they first appeared in 2007. The Cybermen were last seen in 2017, causing the Twelfth Doctor to regenerate.

Co-starring Stephen Fry and Sir Lenny Henry, the opening episode of Series 12 is set to air New Year’s Day with a spy theme, which sees the Doctor and her team all wear tuxedos. You can catch the recent trailer over on the Doctor Who YouTube channel and on the official social media pages.