Doctor Who: 10 Most Compelling Series 9 Fan Theories
Let's Kill Davros! And throw in the Valeyard too! Because an evil future Doctor is cool!
There's less than a week to go before Series 9 starts and somehow the production team have managed to keep spoilers to an absolute minimum.
True, we know from the trailers and the "prologue" that certain new and recurring characters and monsters are coming. Yes, there will be return appearances for Missy, the Zygons, Osgood, classic Daleks, and the Sisterhood of Karn. On the new monsters front, we can expect vikings, the Fisher King, a dragon, a fire-breathing lion person, and alien mercenaries called the Mire.
Not only that, but ghosts, sandmen, and a robed figure with a "meat-stack" face will feature to some degree or other. We even know there will be an adventure on an undersea base, an episode starring only Peter Capaldi, and a minefield of hands with eyes in their palms.
When these intriguing snippets are added to the ecstatic reviews of the opening two-parter, everything learnt so far about Series 9 is cause for celebration. But, inevitably, fans aren't going to stop there, but then why should anyone have to wait the last few days and see what's going to happen? That's not how fandoms work.
One fun theory is that we'll see how Capaldi's cameo at the end of The Day of the Doctor fits in with the Twelfth Doctor's timeline - and that's just the tip of the fan-theory iceberg. Now, some of these fan theories are cool and some are crazy, but they all deserve your attention...
10. Recovered Missing Episodes Will Be Released
Let's get the least plausible theory out of the way first. Many fans are still insisting that certain missing episodes of Classic Who are going to be released as part of celebrating 10 years of NuWho.
The story most talked about in connection with this theory is Marco Polo. Yes, it would be fantastic if the story had really been recovered and the BBC were in the final stages of getting it ready for release - but it hasn't been and they're not.
For a start, if there were missing episodes that had been recovered the BBC's own Restoration Team would be working on them and the members of that team would hint that something was going on. Rather, they've said as strongly as they can that they're not working on anything.
Like all fans, I hope more episodes are recovered, but, I just can't see any evidence for that having happened already. Still, at least the DVD of The Underwater Menace is - at long last - scheduled for release, so fans will be finally be able to buy the last episode that was actually recovered.