Doctor Who Series 11: Everything We Know So Far

Sweeping changes across the board, from the new special effects team to the writers’ room approach to scripting (with no returning writers from series eight, nine and ten), will inevitably mean that the show will look and feel different this time. The biggest tonal shift is likely to come from the talents of composer Segun Akinola. Murray Gold scored several versions of the theme tune during his time on the show, but his catchy, and sometimes overpowered incidental music brought a consistent house style to the 2005-2017 run.

There isn’t much to go on so far of course, but judging from the brief trailer and from Akinola’s past work (including Black and British: A Forgotten History, and Expedition Volcano) we can expect a more minimalistic approach in terms of melodies and instrumentation, and a series of haunting tunes over strong bass lines. It’s already sounding more like Ramin Djawadi’s Game of Thrones soundtrack than Murray Gold’s Doctor Who.

Another noticeable tonal shift has been signalled by the brighter, more colourful palette of the publicity photographs, which are worlds apart from the brooding first images of both Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi’s Doctors. Even the Doctor’s outfit is about establishing a new feel to the series. Whittaker explains that the look was inspired by a photograph she’d seen - “it didn’t feel you needed to be a certain shape, or age, or gender, to wear it. And that’s mainly where it came from”. Though the Doctor’s costume will have a number of variations, the rainbow T-shirt looks set to be part of her signature look, with the coloured stripes functioning a bit like the eighties question mark as a blatant self-defining symbol.