Missing Doctor Who on Saturday nights? BBC Three is set to start repeating episodes of the series from next weekend.

Beginning on Saturday 27th September at 7:10pm, we have The Eleventh Hour, the 2010 episode which introduced Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond, and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams; it was also the first episode with Steven Moffat as showrunner. This is followed immediately by The Beast Below, at 8:15pm, an episode that takes the Doctor and Amy to Starship UK, where they uncover a dark secret at the heart of human society…

Both are written by Moffat, and kicked off Series 5, which included a number of classic stories like The Time of Angels/ Flesh and Stone, Vincent and the Doctor, and The Pandorica Opens/ The Big Bang. However, the BBC hasn’t confirmed how long this season of repeats will continue for, nor if the channel will carry on with Series 5 or skip around various eras. The odds are, though, that they’ll continue with Series 5, seeing as it’s unlikely they’d otherwise show The Beast Below straight after The Eleventh Hour, given that, though it picks up some of the themes from the debut episode, it’s not a two-parter or a sequel.

It says a lot, I think, that the BBC has chosen to air these stories again: they’re basically unrelated to the era written by current showrunner, Russell T Davies, and marked an important point in modern Who history, given that there were talks of Doctor Who being cancelled after Davies and David Tennant left.

Series 5 remains one of the strongest in the programme’s run, so equally, it’s no great shock that BBC Three is using them to grab viewers back in.

Will you be watching? Interestingly, its BBC competition on Saturday nights will be the ever-popular Strictly Come Dancing, which this year stars Alex Kingston, who played Amy and Rory’s daughter, River Song.