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Jul 23, 2017 By Christopher Roberts Jodie Whittaker

Peter Capaldi took over as time- and space-traveling alien The Doctor in Doctor Who in 2013, but he previously announced that his recently completed third season in the iconic role would be his last. He will regenerate into British actress Jodie Whittaker, the Thirteenth Doctor, during this year’s Christmas special. She will be the first female Doctor, which was a big news story last week. But before Whittaker fully takes over, we have one last adventure with Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor in this year’s Christmas special, set to air on Christmas Day. And to make it even more special, it sees him team up with the very first Doctor, who will be played by David Bradley (Harry Potter, The Strain). Now the first trailer for the Christmas special, entitled Twice Upon a Time, has been shared, fresh from its Comic-Con debut. Watch it below.

The episode also features Mark Gatiss (who has written Doctor Who episodes before) as a World War I soldier known only as The Captain and the return of Pearl Mackie as companion Bill Potts.

Doctor Who first aired in 1963. The writers worked out a clever way to keep going when its original lead actor, William Hartnell, needed to leave the show in 1966 due to his declining health-as The Doctor is an alien, instead of dying, when he is mortally wounded he “regenerates” into a new body and personality, allowing them to cast a new actor every few years while retaining the same continuity. Hartnell returned in a diminished capacity for the 10th anniversary special series of episodes The Three Doctors (which aired in 1972 and 1973), but died in 1975. Richard Hurndall played the First Doctor in 1983’s 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors, but he died in 1984. This makes Bradley the third actor to play the role in the official continuity, although Peter Cushing played a different, seemingly non-alien, version of the First Doctor in two theatrical films (1965’s Dr. Who and the Daleks and 1966’s Daleks - Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.) not connected to the TV series. Bradley was cast partly because he actually played William Hartnell in An Adventure in Space and Time, a 50th anniversary BBC TV movie from 2013 about the behind-the-scenes of the creation of Doctor Who and the production of the first four seasons. An Adventure in Space and Time was written by Mark Gatiss.

Twice Upon a Time is also Steven Moffat‘s final episode as the showrunner and head writer on Doctor Who. His replacement will be Chris Chibnall, who has already written several episodes of Doctor Who and its spinoff series Torchwood and is also known for creating and writing the acclaimed British detective drama Broadchurch (which stars Jodie Whittaker and David Tennant, who used to star as the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who).

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