The BBC is going to court in order to find out who leaked scenes from the upcoming series of Doctor Who, the first to feature Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor.
Though we won’t go into fine details about exactly what the clip included, it looked to be from the debut episode of Doctor Who Series 11; fans did get to see what appears to be a new sonic screwdriver (not really a spoiler, seeing as everyone predicted the Doctor would get a new one).
On Friday 29th June 2018, the BBC requested the California federal court issue a subpoena to Tapatalk, an American mobile community platform, to obtain information about the individual who leaked the rough-cut scene. BBC Studios said:
“[We] will strive to protect our programme-makers, audiences and licence fee payers from any breaches of security – ensuring Doctor Who fans enjoy the final and fully completed version of the episode when it premieres.”
It’s nice to see the corporation is taking this seriously, considering its history of leaks – including the entirety of Rose in 2005; advanced copies of Series 7 DVDs being sent out to fans in the US before The Name of the Doctor aired; and the scripts for Deep Breath, Into the Dalek, Robot of Sherwood, Listen, and Time Heist going online before Series 8 began.
Still, the impact of this particular clip has been minimal due to the BBC quickly taking it down; in fact, many fans were happy just to finally learn something about the upcoming run of episodes.