Doctor Who Christmas Special

WARNING: Potential spoilers for the ‘Doctor Who’ episodes ‘The Doctor Falls’ and the 2017 Christmas Special lie ahead – if you haven’t seen the episode and wish to avoid knowing such things, the time to stop reading is now!

The climactic episode of this season of ‘Doctor Who,’ entitled ‘The Doctor Falls,’ has aired, and fans are still reeling from the emotional roller-coaster of one of the most jam-packed episodes of DW that we’ve seen in a long time.  The fate of Bill is uncertain, and the Doctor has met himself – current Doctor portrayer Peter Capaldi came face-to-face with the recast First Doctor in David Bradley.  Fans are obviously left to wonder: what’s next?

Well, that would be the upcoming Christmas Special, an annual “one-off” episode that usually runs about 90 minutes and usually features a story or a revelation that’s quite extraordinary.  This year, we are almost assured to see the regeneration of Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor into the Thirteenth Doctor, portrayed by someone that has been kept secret so far.  Could there be no Thirteenth Doctor, and perhaps instead of a return of the First Doctor as the lead of the next season?  Well, anything is possible, I suppose – and with the recent leaking of a few photos from the shooting of this Christmas Special, we now know that both Twelve and One are indeed -pardon the pun – present.

Take a peek at this tweet from Twitter user @GirlyLetters, who appears to have an acquaintance that was recently nearby the ‘Doctor Who’ shooting location and snapped this trio of highly informational photos:

Clearly shown are two TARDISes side-by-side, and they appear to be both the current iteration and a smaller version, almost assuredly the First Doctor’s.  In the center area of the other two photos, Capaldi and Bradley can clearly be seen in their respective Doctor wear, as seen at the end of ‘The Doctor Falls,’ so it’s clear the Christmas Special will continue their story together.

Gone, however, is the snowy setting that is like the South Pole in the 1980s (see our breakdown of ‘The Doctor Falls’ for more info on this), replaced with what appears to be a World War I-era backdrop.  Since the Christmas Specials usually actually do take place on or near to Christmas on the calendar, in terms of the story itself, could we be seeing a scene set during the infamous “Christmas Truce” of 1914?  In that year, soldiers from the French, British, and German contingencies largely agreed on Christmas Day to a temporary cease-fire, with some areas even going so far as to see troops venture into “no man’s land” to fraternize and exchange food and souvenirs with one another.

Here are the photos, in case you can’t see them in the tweet.

What do you think? Give us your theories below!

‘Doctor Who’ will return with the Christmas Special episode this December on BBC America.