The BBC released a teaser trailer for Doctor Who Series 13 at this last weekend’s San Diego Comic Con, promising “her biggest adventure yet”.

What this means is actually a serialized form, i.e. one story told across the whole series, seemingly like The Trial of a Time Lord.

The trailer introduces us to new companion, Dan Lewis (John Bishop), and recurring character, Vinder (Jacob Anderson), who will board the TARDIS during the run of 8 episodes, but also has his own spaceship. Here’s that trailer in full:

Admittedly, it isn’t very long, and consists of some repeated shots and a lot of the TARDIS spinning the Vortex, but at least us fans haven’t been completely forgotten.

Asked to give a one-word clue for Series 13, Chris Chibnall (Doctor Who‘s current showrunner) said, “Swarm”. The Invisible Enemy sequel (not at all) CONFIRMED.

It was also confirmed that the series will feature some returning foes that the Thirteenth Doctor hasn’t faced yet… which isn’t a massive shock, given that we’ve seen a few of them on location already. It does seem an odd choice not to lead with that, however: surely the point of returning enemies is to generate publicity (as well as tell a decent story)?

A serialized story does at least mean “lots of cliffhangers” and as we know the series does feature numerous times and places, it does seem likely that it’ll follow Trial of a Time Lord‘s example in giving us one linking narrative with smaller tales to tell each week. But that’s pure speculation right now.

Doctor Who returns to TV later in 2021.