Doctor Who January news roundup: 2020 has begun with a major month for the series

With returning heroes and villains, as well as some major revelations, January has proved to be a huge month for Doctor Who fans.

It has to be said: it’s been quite a month. It feels like the year has barely started, and yet we’re already halfway through Jodie Whittaker’s second series of Doctor Who. Many of us expected something as low key as Series 11: something more focused on characters and standalone stories than on major arcs, as Steven Moffat’s era usually featured.

So it was an incredible surprise for the series to begin with the Master’s return! A new incarnation played by Sacha Dhawan, this Master comes across as more eager and more dangerous than recent incarnations. Particularly Michelle Gomez’s iconic Missy, who tried hard to be the Doctor’s friend in her final series.

On top of that, we also found out about the second destruction of Gallifrey. (At least, in the TV series. It’s also been destroyed once or twice in expanded media, particularly in the Eighth Doctor novels.) Spyfall proved to be a huge opening story for Series 12, and featured some major surprises. But that was nothing compared to this month’s last episode…

River Song returned in a brand new series of her own spin-off, The Diary of River Song.

Image Courtesy: Big Finish Productions.

Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions

River Song, Weeping Angels and the Fourth Doctor

Before we get to the events of the most recent episode however, let’s cover what’s been happening in the Doctor Who universe in other media. A major new arc has begun in the Thirteenth Doctor’s own comic series. Featuring not just the Tenth Doctor but even the Weeping Angels, this new arc takes place during the events of the iconic episode Blink.

Speaking of the Weeping Angels, River Song meets them once more in the seventh series of her own spin-off, The Diary of River Song, in a prequel story to The Angels Take Manhattan. On top of that, the box set also features other stories of River playing detective, and just might be one of her strongest box sets yet.

And if the start of one new series of Doctor Who wasn’t enough for you, we also had the beginning of another series on audio, specifically for Tom Baker’s Doctor. Set during his final season on television, The Fourth Doctor Adventures: Series 9 focuses on his adventures with Romana and Adric in E-Space, and gave us two very strong stories that suit the era well.

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Even earlier this month, we had the long-awaited release of Torchwood: The Sins of Captain John. A prequel spin-off that focuses on the adventures of the titular captain played by James Marsters, this is a rather different kind of series from Big Finish. More comedic and with a character who enjoys breaking the fourth wall repeatedly, the series turns Captain John into the Doctor Who universe’s equivalent of Deadpool. And that’s certainly no bad thing.

But perhaps the biggest story released from Big Finish this month is Dark Universe. An audio that reveals how the Seventh Doctor captured Time Lord psychopath the Eleven, the series provided some major setup for Eighth Doctor series Doom Coalition, while also setting up some other major threads, too. In some ways, it felt like the biggest Doctor Who story this month in any medium. That is, until Fugitive of the Judoon came along…

Fugitive of the Judoon introduced a brand new Doctor. But where does she come from?

Photo Credit: Ben Blackall/BBC Studios/BBC America

January’s biggest episode

After a heavy-handed political message in Orphan 55 (even by Doctor Who standards) and a pleasant enough pseudo-historical in Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror, Series 12 shook things up in a big way. A mid-series trailer promised some major shocks and surprises, but I don’t think any of us were expecting what this episode alone would bring.

First, we had the surprise return of Captain Jack Harkness. The first time he’d been on-screen in almost a decade, it was great to see him after so long, even if his storyline did feel like little more than a cameo.

But perhaps the boldest surprise came with the revelation of a brand new Doctor. Played by Jo Martin, Fugitive of the Judoon introduced an incarnation that we had never seen before, but is strongly implied to be from the Doctor’s past. But how? That’s something we’re going to have to wait to find out.

January has proved to be a major month for Doctor Who fans, especially its final week. People may love or hate the twists that this current series has given us, but it’s certainly got people talking. It’s unknown what February will bring us, but we’re eager to find out.

Have you enjoyed the first half of Series 12? Listened to some of Big Finish’s major releases? What’s been the highlight of Doctor Who in January? Let us know in the comments below.