'Doctor Who': First Photo From New Year's Day Special Released

Doctor Who may be forgoing its Christmas special for a New Year's Day version this season, but [...]

By Nicole Drum

Doctor Who may be forgoing its Christmas special for a New Year's Day version this season, but from the looks of things there will still be plenty for fans to celebrate thanks to a new photo released by BBC.

In a post to the official Doctor Who on BBC America Twitter account today, fans are getting a first look at Jodie Whitaker's Thirteenth Doctor all bundled up in a brightly-colored striped scarf in what appears to be a direct homage to Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor and his iconic scarf. Check it out below.

Scarves are cool, indeed. This addition of a scarf adds another style element from previous Doctors to Whittaker's character. Her outfit already pays homage to her predecessors with a long coat as nod to the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), suspenders for the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), and Baker's Fourth Doctor already had a small nod in the stripes on her shirt.

While fans of the long-running series will no doubt enjoy the sartorial nods, the New Year's special marks a big change for Doctor Who. This year will mark the first time since the series' relaunch in 2005 that there will be no Doctor Who Christmas Special airing on Christmas Day. According to showrunner Chris Chibnall, there's a good reason for that: the show has simply run out of ideas for the special.

"I sort of think we might have mined, and possibly overmined, every single thing we could about Christmas in Doctor Who and the last time we more or less ignored it," Chibnall told the Mirror.

This isn't the first time that the Christmas Special has been, at a minimum, at risk. Former showrunner Steven Moffat told ComicBook.com last year that he had put in some extra effort to ensure the 2017 Christmas Special happened, thus keeping the tradition alive.

"But we had the awkward business that Chris [Chibnall] didn't want to start with the Christmas episode, quite rightly," Moffat said. "So, there was the momentary possibility there wouldn't be any Christmas episode, so I suggested that I do the Christmas episode and talked Peter [Capaldi] into doing one more so that Doctor Who wouldn't lose the slot.

"Having done that, of course, we had the problem of doing the grand finale plus an hour. And so it's a different kind of story. It's a story about the Twelfth Doctor, the Doctor himself at the end of his life, thinking, 'I don't know if I can keep doing this, I'm tired,' and finding the strength to carry on. You see, it's a Christmas story resurrection for both him and for the First Doctor who's in the same mental state. So they both have to convince each other that one more regeneration is possible. So it's that kind of story."'

What do you think of this first look at the Doctor Who New Year's Day Special? Let us know in the comments.

Doctor Who airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on BBC America.

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