Doctor Who: 12 Things You Need To Know About Series 9

3. The Finale Begins With A Whopping Cliffhanger

If the Earth-shattering reveal of Missy's true identity in the penultimate episode of Series 8 wasn't enough to send your Whovian feels into overdrive, there's still hope yet. According to Steven Moffat, the Series 9 finale will kick off with a momentous cliffhanger - he actually used the word "whopping" to describe it - which he promises that no Doctor Who fan will see coming. Let's face it, though, they probably will. Even the capricious circumstances surrounding the Master's return in Dark Water - while perfectly executed - had been foreseen by a minority of the fandom who dedicate their lives solely to predicting future storylines. As such, they'll probably manage to figure this one out, too (that is, if they haven't already), but let's just hope its shock factor lives up to the Grand Moff's word for the rest of us. Suffice to say, the bar of his climactic cliffhangers has already been set. At the end of his first series as showrunner, Steven left viewers on the edge of their seats by locking the Doctor in an eternal prison, transforming Rory into an Auton (who then proceeded to kill Amy) and then - seemingly just for the sheer hell of it - destroyed the entire universe. And he didn't stop there, either. The mid Series 6 cliffhanger gave us the game-changing revelation that River Song was Amy and Rory's daughter (again, another storyline that had been somewhat preempted) and Series 7 ended with the mother of all twists when John Hurt was introduced as a forgotten incarnation of the Doctor that nobody had even known about. Blimey. It's no exaggeration, therefore, to say that fans are expecting big things from this "whopper" cliffhanger at the end of Series 9's penultimate episode. Perhaps Gallifrey really is coming back after all...