Peter Capaldi may have just let slip when we can expect to see the next full series of Doctor Who.
Coming straight from the Time Lords mouth, Capaldi told fans gathered to watch the currently-filming series 10, that the series was planned to return next April, in keeping with the BBC’s previous suggestion that it would air sometime in Spring.
In a video tweet, Capaldi can be heard telling fan Lucy Crewe that:
“We’ll be on at Christmas, and then it starts again in April, I think.”

Peter and kids’ birthdays. #dwsr pic.twitter.com/A5z1MNUfQw

— Lucy Crewe (@CreativeCatFX) 6 September 2016

So while it isn’t definitive, it does appear as though Doctor Who will be reverting back to the regular release schedule of the pervious, earlier series, which usually started in late March or April and ran until June or July. Series 9 saw the show air in a later, unfixed timeslot during the winter months and was seen by many as one of the reasons why the show suffered a slump in overnight ratings.
However, one thing doesn’t necessarily prove the other and it could perhaps simply represent the best time slot to release the show unimpeded by autumnal juggernauts like The X Factor or even the Beeb’s Strictly Come Dancing, which in this month’s DWM, executive producer Brian Minchin pointed out, the show really was at the mercy of its place at the heart of the Saturday schedule.
Minchin said:
“We were scheduled to go out after Strictly. If we’d said, ‘we really want to,’ I think the conversation would have been had. But we didn’t. So we ended up going out after Strictly, and later than perhaps we’d anticipated.”
Whatever the eventual air date happens to be, one thing is clear; Doctor Who will return for a special episode this Christmas and then for a full series in Spring 2017.