Doctor Who: 8 Simple Fixes It Must Make For Series 12

4. Acknowledge The Wider Whoniverse

Something Chibnall did with Series 11, rightly or wrongly, was have it almost completely standalone. The Doctor’s origin and species didn’t change, nor did the fundamental nature of the TARDIS, nor did the base formula of the show - this wasn’t the Peter Cushing Dr. Who movies (though they are definitely worth watching). It was a great means of getting new people into the show, and it’s not a bad place to start. Though I do definitely recommend starting at Series 1, don’t skip nine. One thing we did know was that the series was to feature all new monsters. No throwbacks to old enemies until this year’s Resolution. That time of pure originality has been and gone, and there’s now no excuse to ignore the past.

Bring back old monsters, or variations of the old monsters. We had the clockwork droids from The Girl in the Fireplace return in some form in Deep Breath, the Abzorbaloff, as loved or hated as you’d like, was a ‘relative’ of sorts of the Raxacoricofallapatorians (or Slitheen), and even the aforementioned Resolution did Daleks again but sort of in their own way.

It’s not only monsters though. Gallifrey is still out there. We didn’t get closure on The Master, and surely they’ll be back at some point. There’s the Rani, the Valeyard, Rassilon, the General, a plethora of Time Lords to bring back. Maybe there could be yet another echo of the Time War yet to catch up with the Doctor. The fact is, the Universe is huge and is always screaming, yet our adventures so far with Thirteen have been pretty quiet. Just don’t bring back the Weeping Angels though.