Monday 20 January 2020

The New Series 12 Trailer


As mentioned in my review of Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror, BBC America last night released a new trailer covering the second half of the season which has now appeared on the BBC's Doctor Who YouTube channel. The timing is slightly unusual - you would have expected this to have landed after the mid point of the series, rather than after only Episode 4. It might be a sign of concern about the ratings. If you think the UK ratings are a worry, you should seek out the US ones:
https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/doctor-who-season-12-ratings/

Most of the clips in the new trailer haven't been seen before, although the first one is of the Doctor atop the lighthouse which we have seen. The beach setting might suggest that this comes from Praxeus, as we saw the flock of birds appear on a beach. This next shot is certainly from this story.


There are a number of shots from Fugitive of the Judoon, most of which we already saw in last night's teaser trailer for the episode. The one significant addition is a shot of a woman named Gat, who appears in this story. Possibly the titular fugitive?


The presence of a Judoon in the background shows that this has to come from next week's episode. We also see a shot of guest artist Neil Stuke, as well as the Doctor and his character's wife surrounded by Judoon in Gloucester Cathedral.
We next get a shot of actor Ian Gelder, which I'm told might be from Episode 7.


As you can see, he's in the TARDIS, and one other clip shows a figure materialise in the TARDIS out of black smoke-like particles. Now Gelder voiced the rag-like Remnants in The Ghost Monument, which might just be a coincidence, or this episode might be furthering the Timeless Child arc - speaking of which we hear, but don't see, Sacha Dhawan's Master, and the ruined Gallifrey also reappears. (Gelder is already acquainted with the Doctor Who universe, having featured in TorchwoodChildren of Earth).


We then move on to the Cyberman story - or might it be stories? There is some thought that a lone Cyberman might feature in Episode 8, to be followed by more Cybermen in the series finale. You'll recall that we were promised two-parters, plural, and it is believed that the second two-parter might be Episodes 9 & 10. That would actually mean the Cybermen are in three consecutive episodes, so the lone one might be in 7, and the Gelder story is Episode 8, just to space them out. Either that or there is no lone Cyberman story and they only feature in a double part finale. The long held rumour of a Mary Shelley / Cyberman episode might be confirmed by this image:


The actress on the right is apparently Lili Miller, and she may well be playing Shelley. The costumes look right for 1812.
We then have a few shots which are hard to place:


Most of the first trailer turned out to be from the first three episodes, but there are still a number of images which are yet to appear - such as the gas-masked soldiers wielding ray guns, soldiers being blown into the air by explosions, and Graham being confronted by some large alien looking contraption in a hanger-like space. There are also some shots of the Doctor out in the countryside, with a white church in the background. The new trailer has some similar shots, one of which appears to show a gravestone behind the Doctor.


Trailers can be deceptive. As we saw with the last one, many of the seemingly unconnected shots actually came from the same story. None of the above might come from the finale - just from the middle section of the season. Trailers can also make weak stories look much better than they eventually turn out to be. That first trailer got me very excited about Series 12, then I watched Orphan 55, so I'm going to be a little more cautious with my enthusiasm this time round.

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