Doctor Who Season 11: 10 Reasons To Be Excited

10. A Change Of Direction

As with The Eleventh Hour in 2010, Chris Chibnall’s maiden episode as showrunner is sure to provoke a frenzied reaction. Everything will feel noticeably new. As it turned out, the differences between the Steven Moffat era and the Russell T Davies revival were not as seismic as all the marketing hype had suggested.

The overarching motif of the Time War connected them story-wise, Murray Gold’s distinctive soundtracks glued the two production runs together by carrying over some of his best-loved themes, and Moffat brought back plenty of old writers.

It promises to be a different story this time around, with Chibnall going even further than Moffat when it comes to adding new voices to the mix. The BBC are promoting the series as a significant departure from anything we’ve seen before. Take, for instance, this recent controversial quote from the BBC’s Drama Controller, former executive-producer Piers Wenger:

“Gone is the daffiness and idiosyncrasy of [Jodie Whittaker’s] predecessors in favour of a Doctor with energy, spark and relatability.”

It’s standard practice to sell the latest version of a product by comparing it to earlier models, but this statement appears to go one step further in distancing the new from the old – much to the irritation of fans of the Moffat years. In a series that looks set to be the programme’s biggest creative gamble since its revival in 2005, the casting of the first female Doctor may turn out to be the least radical innovation.