Doctor Who season 13 is finally here! After a long wait, the beloved sci-fi series has made its return for a new adventure across space and time.
Subtitled Doctor Who: Flux, the new season promises to introduce us to monsters and aliens old and new. Jodie Whittaker says this season is “bigger and better than ever” and promises “there’ll be questions asked, there’ll be answers, there’ll be exclamation marks, and huge exclamation marks” throughout the series.
Although we’re only one episode in, the stakes really do seem higher than ever before as the Doctor faces the Flux. Here’s everything we know about Doctor Who season 13 right now!
‘Doctor Who’ season 13 release date
Doctor Who: Flux returned on Sunday, Oct. 31 at 6:25 pm on BBC1 and BBC iPlayer. The series continues with the fourth episode, Village of the Angels, on Sunday at 6:20 pm in the same place.
Episodes will air in the US on BBC America on the same day, with episodes scheduled for 8:00 pm EST.
How many episodes will ‘Doctor Who’ season 13 have?
The upcoming season of Doctor Who will be shorter than fans would want. Initially, Doctor Who season 13 was planned for an 11 episode run. Due to the impact of COVID-19, filming was delayed, and the new season was cut down to a shorter run of 6 episodes, with two specials to follow in 2022.
One of these specials will be the usual Doctor Who Christmas special 2021 (airing on New Year’s Day), with the other following in Spring next year.
When the BBC revealed that Jodie Whittaker would be leaving earlier this year, they also announced that a third and final feature-length adventure had been commissioned to help celebrate the BBC’s centenary next year. This extra episode will air in autumn 2022 and will see the next Doctor taking over.
MORE: Who will replace Jodie Whittaker in Doctor Who?
Meet the new team TARDIS! ✨ pic.twitter.com/6lp270V5LHAugust 16, 2021
Who are the companions in ‘Doctor Who’ season 13?
Dan Lewis (played by John Bishop) is the latest companion to set foot in the TARDIS filling the hole that Graham (Bradley Walsh) and Ryan (Tosin Cole) left after the 2020 Christmas special. Dan is a kind-hearted man who wants to do his best to help, and it sounds like he really threw himself into his new role from the get-go!
Speaking about his first day doing stunts on set, John told us: “Well the problem is, you’ve got to remember I was all excited about being on the TARDIS. Then on the first day, there was some movement of the TARDIS and they said ‘throw yourself’, so I literally threw myself around, and everyone went ‘what are you doing?
“There’s no crash mat, we haven’t got a stunt double, we haven’t done a risk assessment!’. I said, ‘well, every time I watch it, this is what happens’, and they’re going ‘no, no, you just have to wobble, and the camera wobbles!’.
“I have to be honest, there’s so much more action than I was expecting…”
We’re also waiting to see how Vinder (Jacob Anderson) will cross paths with the trio, now that the series has started and we’ve been briefly introduced to him in deep space.
Talking about his new character, Jacob has since said: “I really hope people like Vinder; as a fan of the show and as a fan of those characters that come in and recur and are part of the story beyond their singular story, there are some really iconic characters.
“Like River Song, and Osgood, and all these people you really remember, and I hope Vinder can be a part of that, I really hope people like him.”
Doctor Who season 13 guest cast
Doctor Who season 13 is packed full of amazing guest stars!
Joining the Doctor, Yaz, Dan and Vinder are Robert Bathurst (Cold Feet, Downton Abbey), Thaddea Graham (The Irregulars, Us), Blake Harrison (The Inbetweeners, A Very English Scandal), Kevin McNally (Pirates of the Caribbean, Designated Survivor, Downton Abbey), Craig Parkinson (Line of Duty, The English Game), Sara Powell (Unforgotten, Damned), Annabel Scholey (The Split, Britannia), Gerald Kyd (Cold Feet, Britannia) and Penelope Ann McGhie (The Crown, Harry Potter).
On Oct. 20, even more stars were revealed for the new season! Rochenda Sandall (Line of Duty), Sam Spruell (The North Water), Steve Oram (The End of the F***ing World) Nadia Albina (Innocent), Jonathan Watson (Two Doors Down), Paul Broughton (Clink), and Coronation Street stars Sue Jenkins and Craige Els will all be putting in an appearance over the next six episodes.
Is there a trailer?
Yes! The trailer promised “one epic story” told over “six thrilling chapters”, and makes it look like the stakes are higher than ever for the Doctor.
The biggest thing to note from the trailer is just how many baddies will be showing up over the six-episode season. Veterans viewers will recognize the Ood, Sontarans, Cybermen, and the Weeping Angels, but there are also new baddies like the axe-wielding Karvanista and the sheer power of the Flux as it tears through the galaxy.
You can watch the action-packed trailer below:
‘Doctor Who’: Flux plot
If you’re desperate to know what’s going to happen in the latest season, we’ve now got a series synopsis for Doctor Who: Flux from the BBC.
It says: “Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill, John Bishop and Jacob Anderson star in an epic six-part adventure which will take the Doctor and her friends to the edge of the universe and beyond, in a battle for survival.
Packed with action, humour, terrifying new villains and iconic returning monsters such as the Sontarans and the Weeping Angels, the new series of Doctor Who tells one story across a vast canvas. It features a host of acclaimed British acting talent including Rochenda Sandall, Annabel Scholey, Craig Parkinson, Kevin McNally, Sam Spruell, Robert Bathurst, Steve Oram and Thaddea Graham.
From Liverpool to the depths of space, via the Crimean war and a planet named Atropos which shouldn’t even exist, fighting old foes and new creatures from beyond our dimension, the Doctor and company face a race against (and through!) time to uncover a universe-spanning mystery: what is the Flux?”
What happened in episode one?
*major spoilers ahead*
Doctor Who: Flux kicked off with an explosive season premiere!
We joined the Doctor and Yaz suspended above an acid sea. They’d been hunting a humanoid dog-faced alien called Karvanista, as the Doctor discovered he’s the only living member of The Division, and she wants more answers about the shady organization and about her true identity as the Timeless Child.
Yaz and The Doctor manage to escape from Karvanista’s traps and land in the TARDIS which has strangely begun to malfunction. Across the galaxy, an alien called Swarm breaks out of his containment chamber after being imprisoned for millennia; in a vision later in the episode, he contacts the Doctor and reveals they’ve done battle countless times before, but the Doctor doesn’t remember him.
On Earth, Liverpudlian Dan Lewis is captured by Karvanista and taken aboard his ship, and the Doctor and Yaz manage to track him down after encountering a woman called Claire who appears to know the Doctor already Claire is attacked by a Weeping Angel.
The Doctor demands to know everything about The Division and what Karvanista and the rest of the Lupari are doing near Earth. Although he refuses to share info about the former, he explains he and the rest of the Lupari are actually there to save humanity from the Flux, not kidnap them.
At Observation Outpost Rose, far across the galaxy, Vinder’s latest unexciting day is interrupted by the arrival of the Flux tearing through the fabric of the universe. He files a report about the Flux’s destructive capabilities before making a last-minute escape.
Thirty trillion light-years away, the Sontarans pledge to take advantage of the chaos caused by the Flux, whilst Swarm manages to restore his sister to her true form on Earth. Having learned about the Flux from Karvanista, the Doctor orders him and the rest of Lupari to use their spaceships to form a protective barrier around the Earth to protect it.
After Swarm confronts the Doctor in a sort of vision, the Flux begins chasing the TARDIS instead of targeting Earth. The Doctor blasts it with vortex energy from the TARDIS, but it seems to do nothing to the Flux, leaving the Doctor wondering what to do to try and stop the end of the universe…
What happened in episode two?
In War of the Sontarans, we joined the trio waking up on what they learned was a battlefield near Sevastopol during the Crimean War after they were found by Mary Seacole. The Doc works out that blasting the Flux with vortex energy had catapulted her, Dan, and Yaz back in time, but something was wrong. The British soldiers weren’t ready for a fight with Russian troops, but Sontarans!
Due to the reaction, Yaz and Dan begin to fade out of existence as they were sent elsewhere in time; Dan got sent back home to present-day Liverpool which is also overrun with Sontaran forces, and Yaz found herself transported to the Temple of Atropos on the planet Time, where she met Vinder.
The Doctor worked with Seacole to understand where the Sontarans had come from and (unsuccessfully) tried to prevent Lieutenant-General Logan from facing them in battle. Meanwhile, Dan’s parents save him from being captured and help him get to Liverpool docks, where he makes his way aboard one of their spaceships.
In the Temple of Atropos, Vinder explains that the Temple Guardians (aka the Mouri) are broken, and that Time (which is a force that flows through the Temple) is destabilizing, and that they’re being asked whether they can fix it.
Dan makes contact with the Doctor; with the info he’d gathered in the present, the Doctor works out the Sontarans planned to conquer Earth by invading at multiple time periods right before the Lupari encircled the planet, and the pair resolve to stop the Sontarans in their respective time periods.
Karvanista arrives to rescue Dan at the last second, and the pair manage to hijack one ship and crash it into the others. Meanwhile, the Doctor gets the British troops to sabotage the Sontaran spaceships in 1855, but Logan rigs them to explode as they begin to retreat out of revenge for all his fallen troops earlier that day.
Back in the Temple, Swarm and his sister Azure arrive; Yaz and Vinder are captured by them and trapped in the place of the missing Mouri. When Dan and the Doctor set out to find Yaz, the TARDIS gets hijacked and arrives in the Temple, where the Doctor learns what’s happening to Time itself, and Swarm threatens that he will force the full power of Time itself through Yaz’s body, just as the credits rolled!
What happened in episode three?
*MASSIVE spoilers for Doctor Who season 13 ahead*
Once, Upon Time saw the Doctor thwarting Swarm’s plan by taking the place of one of the Mouri and throwing herself and her companions into the heart of the Timestorm as the flow of time itself started to unravel.
With the help of the Mouri, the Doctor managed to hide her companions in their own respective timelines, although things weren’t quite perfect for any of them as the time force itself was hunting down anomalies. Dan found the flow of time back in present-day Liverpool was very distorted, Vinder was forced to relive the moments that led to him being posted out in deep space at his observation post, and Yaz found herself being stalked by a weeping angel in Sheffield!
The Doctor also relived a moment from her own past. She found herself about to lead an assault on the Temple of Atropos to capture the Ravagers (Swarm and Azure). The only problem? She couldn’t remember this event at all, and found Dan, Yaz, and Vinder alongside her, wearing The Division’s uniforms.
Inside the temple, the Doctor saw her own reflection, learning that she was reliving a moment from the Fugitive Doctor’s (Jo Martin) past! Her companions were stand-ins for her Division teammates (one of which was revealed to be Karvanista).
The Doctor and her team confront the Ravagers in the temple. The Mouri were trapped inside the form of one of their Passengers (essentially, humanoid prisons which can hold thousands of people inside) and were teleported inside the Temple to stabilize time in the past. Having lived through this event, Jodie’s Doctor asks the Mouri to embed themselves in the present to restabilize time again!
The Mouri warn the Doctor that she cannot stay in the timestorm for much longer, and force her out. However, she found herself teleported somewhere else, encountering a strange woman. This mystery person tells the Doctor she’s fighting a lost cause and that the ravagers are useful creatures. Shockingly, she also states that this universe is over, and reveals the Flux was a man-made catastrophe released because of the Doctor, before sending her back to the present!
With time restabilized a second time, the Ravagers reveal that they planned everything this way and brought the Doctor to the Temple on purpose. Although she repaired the time stream, particles of the time force had still been unleashed according to their plan, and they escaped.
Throughout the episode, we were also introduced to Bel (Thaddea Graham). Bel is Vinder’s partner, and she has been trying to track him down all this time, avoiding the warring Dalek, Cyberman, and Sontaran forces in the process. She’s also pregnant with their child. At the end of the episode, Vinder asked the Doc to take him home; finding the planet abandoned and ravaged by the Flux, he resolves to find her, and the Doctor leaves him a hotline to the TARDIS should he need her help again in the future.
What rumors have we heard?
We were keeping up with the rumors ahead of the show’s return… will any more of them come true?
One rumor suggested Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) might make a return in the series. Some fans spotted a synopsis for a Captain Jack comic book tie-in briefly suggested it would link closely with the second episode of season 13. Obviously, this has turned out not to be true Jack was nowhere to be seen when the Doctor face the Sontarans
Although Jodie’s first season was dominated by new monsters and alien races, that all changed when the Daleks, the Master, the Judoon, and the Cybermen became important in series 12.
As we’ve now seen, returning monsters are set to play a big role in Doctor Who: Flux, although we already knew that the Sontarans and the Weeping Angels would be back after some eagle-eyed fans spotted them during production!
Spooky goings on outside the house tonight in Penarth. It’s daylight at 8and a rather strange statue in the middle of the road. Mmmm 🤔 I wonder what they’re filming?? Could it possibly involve a Doctor. Who knows?? Good to see the film industry starting up again. pic.twitter.com/pr5fD7oVmrDecember 8, 2020
In the weeks leading up to the new series, we also learned that the Ravagers would be a key enemy in this series. Chris Chibnall explained that the Ravagers “are a couple of characters who we meet who are creatures of another dimension who have a history with the Doctor – but I even think with this I am giving too much away!”
After we saw the Doctor assault Atropos with the Division, we know that Azure and Swarm are the Ravagers and that they’ve had some truly nefarious plans to unleash the raw flow of time itself on the universe throughout their lives.
One epic story. Over six thrilling chapters. #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/JSnxgL3YvDOctober 16, 2021
Who is the showrunner for Doctor Who season 13?
Series 13 isn’t just Jodie Whittaker’s last full outing as the Doctor, it’s also Chris Chibnall’s.
When the news of Jodie’s departure broke, the BBC also revealed that Chris Chibnall would be departing his role as Doctor Who showrunner at the same time. He’ll still be in charge of the remaining episodes, but will be handing his role over to someone else after the final special airs in 2022.
In September, we learned that Chris Chibnall would be replaced by Russell T. Davies! According to the announcement on the official Doctor Who website, Davies will “make an explosive return to screens to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who in 2023, and series beyond.”
Seasons 1-12 of modern Doctor Who are available to stream on BBC iPlayer in the UK right now, and US readers can find them on HBO Max. You can also watch episodes of classic Who on BritBox.
