The Doctor Drops In with a 2023 Teaser for Christmas

The Doctor Who 60th Anniversary special (or trio of specials) is almost a full year out, and we know a lot about them. Since the BBC revealed Russell T. Davies was returning to the series as showrunner since leaving in 2009, there's been a flurry of news. David Tennant, who played the Tenth Doctor during Davies' reign, is confirmed to return, as will his final companions, Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) and her granddad Wilfred Mott (the late Bernard Cribbins in his final on-screen role). A new Rose (Yasmin Finney) will join Team TARDIS, and American actor Neil Patrick Harris will play a villain believed to be the Celestial Toymaker. Ncuti Gatwa will wind up as the Doctor following these specials.

But there's also a lot that we don't know, though perhaps the thing we know that makes everything feel so unsettled is this: Rule One: The Doctor lies. That trope was from the Moffat era, not the Davies one, but it resonated because it also could be easily extrapolated to refer to the marketing around the series. ("The Next Doctor" special, anyone?) Currently, Tennant is being referred to as "The 14th Doctor" (which would be unprecedented, having the same actor play two iterations deliberately) and Gatwa, his successor, as "The 15th Doctor," despite being cast initially as the 14th.

But fans aren't sure this is real, and Doctor Who isn't trying to pull a fast one again. They'll believe it when they see it and not before. The new trailer is not going to help matters, either. Though 2022 marks the first year with no Doctor Who holiday special since the show's reboot, Davies didn't forget us, with the BBC dropping the first teaser for the 2023 60th Anniversary during Strictly Come Dancing's Holiday special. In it, Tennant doesn't seem to be a new Doctor at all.