Doctor Who Series 13 Starts Filming: 10 Early Predictions For What We'll See

9. A Celebrity Historical

Doctor Who Tenth Doctor Thirteenth Doctor Weeping Angels
BBC Studios

Historical episodes are a common sight in Doctor Who, and they come in two formats.

A "regular historical" is simply an episode that is set in the past - think The Next Doctor or The Girl Who Died - whereas a "celebrity historical" is set in the past, and also has a central focus on a famous historical figure, like Agatha Christie in The Unicorn And The Wasp, or Vincent van Gogh in Vincent And The Doctor.

There weren't many of these celebrity historicals during the Peter Capaldi years (in fact, he only had a single one: Series 8's Robot Of Sherwood, which revolved around Robin Hood), but Chibnall seems to really like them, with people like Rosa Parks and Nikola Tesla getting the Doctor Who treatment in Series 11 and Series 12, respectively.

As a result (and yes, this is quite a safe prediction) we fully expect to see another one in Series 13. There are already whispers that Crimean War nurse Mary Seacole will feature in an episode, and when you consider that Chibnall's celebrity historicals have been among the best stories of his tenure, it's a no-brainer for him to do another one.

In this post: 
Doctor Who
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.