Unauthorised online leaks are one of the the perils of TV production in the modern age. As a high-profile series subject to much speculation and gossip, Doctor Who is at more risk than most other shows.

Showrunner, Russell T Davies has revealed that a script from this year’s Series 14 turned up early online, although it seems nobody noticed. Speaking before transmission, Davies said:

“I just hope we can get from here to transmission without things being spoiled, because things do get spoiled.

“And things get spoiled to an extraordinary degree. We found one script – I’m going to say this – we found one script on an open server in Brazil.”

Davies will have been familiar with the dangers, of course. Way back in 2005, before the revived series of Doctor Who had got underway, an early cut of Rose appeared online three weeks before transmission. On that occasion, the leak was sourced to a ‘third party company in Canada’ and resulted in the dismissal of the person responsible.

Other showrunners in the modern era have had to tackle similar woes. In 2014, five scripts from Peter Capaldi’s debt series leaked online, thought to have originated from a BBC Worldwide office in the US. BBC Worldwide had to issue an appeal for fans not to share the material, should they stumble across it.

And in 2014, the BBC took legal action following the leak of a 53-second clip of Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor which emerged before her first run of episodes had begun (what is it with leaks and Doctor Who debuts?!).

Doctor Who will officially return at Christmas (or perhaps a little earlier, if one of these confounded leakers gets their hands on it) on BBC One and iPlayer, and on Disney+ worldwide.