'Doctor Who' Release Date Trailer Says The Doctor Is In New Year's Day

After a false start on Nov. 23rd, Doctor Who is back with a second trailer that announces the Doctor is in, come New Year's Day.

To be fair, first trailer for Jodie Whittaker's return to the TARDIS was more about the idea of the annual anniversary of "Doctor Who Day" than it was about either Season 12 or a potential New Year's Day special. But that didn't make the "early 2020" annoucement any less frustrating to fans, who have been waiting a year since Season 11 ended to learn when the Doctor would return.

The move from a Christmas to a New Year's special two years running may not have been the best-kept of secrets, but it works well with the Season 12 tagline "Space: For All." Christmas, after all, is only the default in Christian countries. As a show based in the U.K. for U.K. fans, where Christianity and the associated holidays are a staple of the country's monocultural landscape, Christmas specials made sense. (They also worked with the BBC's standard schedule, which does Christmas specials for all the popular series.)

But Doctor Who aspires to be more than that, and considering the number of countries it airs in around the world, it could be argued it *is* more than that now.

Not that January 1st as "New Year's Day" is universal either, it's a concept derived from the Western Gregorian calendar. But in a global economy where some calendars supersede others for ease of communication, New Year's Day is far more universal, and, more importantly, not fraught with religious significance. It really is a step forward into a world of "Space For All."