We still have a while to wait until the next full series of Doctor Who (delayed due to head writer Steven Moffat’s Sherlock commitments), but now we have an idea of exactly when the new series will air straight from the Time Lord’s mouth.

While chatting to fans on set of the currently-filming series 10, Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi let slip that the series was planned to return next April, in keeping with the BBC’s previous suggestions that it would be sometime in Spring.

“We’ll be on at Christmas, and then it starts again in April, I think,” Capaldi told fan Lucy Crewe, while taking photos, as you can see in the video below.

Peter and kids' birthdays. #dwsr pic.twitter.com/A5z1MNUfQw
— Lucy Crewe (@CreativeCatFX) September 6, 2016

Interestingly, this schedule shift puts Capaldi’s next series airing at a similar time of year to the first few series of the revived Doctor Who, which usually started in late March or April and ran until June or July.

In recent years the series has started to edge towards a winter timeslot (with series 9 beginning in September) and faced declining ratings, so the series creators could be taking advantage of Who’s year off to reposition the show more favourably in the schedules.

Alternatively, it could be that the time of year had no effect on ratings whatsoever (correlation is not causation, after all, and winter is usually a better time to have people avoiding the cold watching TV), and April was picked as simply the most convenient time to introduce the world to new companion Bill (Pearl Mackie).

Whatever the truth, we do know one thing – if Peter Capaldi was right, we now only have 7 months to wait until we find everything out…

Doctor Who will return to BBC1 this Christmas, and for a full series in Spring 2017

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