Doctor Who

The new season of ‘Doctor Who’ returns to BBC One on October 7! Change is the theme for this upcoming series, a new Doctor who is being played by a female for the first time, new companions, new worlds with new villains, and even a new time slot! The long-running sci-fi show will trade in the Saturday night slot where it has lived since 2005 for a Sunday evening slot instead.

The premiere episode introducing Jodie Whittaker will be a global event airing on BBC America at 1:45pm ET/PT (6:45pm on BBC One). The episode is said to be 60 minutes long with no commercials so make sure you are ready with all your Jelly Babies and Jammie Dodgers at hand for the event! Lucky NYCC attendees get to see it live in the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden right before the ‘Doctor Who’ panel with Whittaker, Chris Chibnall, and executive producer Matt Strevens. A repeat airing of the episode will be shown at 8pm.

After that, the series will settle into its new time slot of Sundays at 8pm.

In a recent interview, ‘Doctor Who’ executive producer Matt Strevens explained that he and showrunner Chris Chibnall were open to changing the show’s slot, but the “high-ups” at the BBC pushed for the move to Sunday. He said:

“We were talking about how you refresh it, how you change it up… and one of the things was, ‘Let’s put everything on the table,’ and that includes the night it goes out.”

Strevens continued, saying:

“But it was very much a decision taken by the upper echelons of the BBC and the schedulers – ‘the high-ups’ as we call them! But when they approached us – Chris and I – and said they’d like to maybe move it to Sunday night, we thought that was an absolutely brilliant idea.”

Chibnall also gave a statement about the move, saying:

“New Doctor, new home! Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is about to burst into Sunday nights — and make the end of the weekend so much more exciting. Get everybody’s homework done, sort out your Monday clothes, then grab some special Sunday night popcorn, and settle down with all of the family for Sunday night adventures across space and time. (Also, move the sofa away from the wall so parents can hide behind it during the scary bits). The Thirteenth Doctor is falling from the sky and it’s going to be a blast.”

The first episode of series 11 of ‘Doctor Who,’ ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’, was written by Chibnall and directed by Jamie Childs and features guest appearances from Sharon D Clarke, Johnny Dixon, and Samuel Oatley.

Don’t miss the return of ‘Doctor Who’ on October 7!