Doctor Who: brand new trailer is released showing David Tennant and Catherine Tate

A new Doctor Who trailer was released yesterday evening and fans of the show have been buzzing.

The clip, which is for the three 60th birthday specials which are airing in November, provides a new glimpse of David Tennant and Catherine Tate. The duo will be returning as the 10th Doctor and Donna Noble, 13 years after they left the show.

But before anyone gets too excited, it must be mentioned that the trailer is literally 10 seconds long, which means that those who have been trying to decipher should be commended for putting in such a Herculean effort: there really isn’t much to go off.

However, the clip does reveal a few things: audiences get a first look at Neil Patrick Harris, who’ll be playing some sort of villain in the specials. He’s wearing a suit, staring at the camera, and juggling. The trailer also opens with a deck of cards falling while a voice says “these are the rules of the game”, and a man, wearing a top hat and tails, dances slowly in the street. So everything points to Harris’ character playing some sinister games with the Doctor in the upcoming episodes.

There is also a glitching “network error” notification that appears on the screen, which includes a line that says, “Tracing route to: Eurovision 13/05/23”. Fans have been speculating that this almost certainly means that another longer trailer will be released on Saturday.

The new trailer is not for season 14 of Doctor Who, which will star Ncuti Gatwa, and which will premiere over the Christmas period, but is for the three 60th-birthday specials which will air in autumn. These will be stand alone episodes, which is why Tennant is set to reprise his role, while Bad Education star Gatwa will take over from Jodie Whittaker as the next Doctor.

“It looks impossible – first, we announce a new Doctor, and then an old Doctor, along with the wonderful Donna, what on earth is happening?” said Russell T Davies, who is returning as Doctor Who’s showrunner for both the specials and the new season. “Maybe this is a missing story. Or a parallel world. Or a dream, or a trick, or a flashback. The only thing I can confirm is that it’s going to be spectacular, as two of our greatest stars reunite for the battle of a lifetime.”

The Doctor Who 60th-birthday specials are set to be released in November 2023