What does the new cryptic Doctor Who trailer mean?
Excitement is building in the Doctor Who community as the 60th anniversary special episodes edge closer every day.
The latest tease came in the form of what appeared to be a cryptic message broadcast on the BBC between shows on Saturday night that if you blinked, you would have missed.
Luckily in the age of social media, it only takes one person to spot it and record it, for such a tease to become the subject of speculation . Indeed, that’s exactly what its creators want us to do, right!?
In the 10 second clip, below, the BBC ident between is interrupted by a “network error”, shots of the TARDIS, a UNIT soldier with glowing eyes and pictures of David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble. In the background there are a number of what appear to be indecipherable noises and accompanied by distorted and flickering images.
However, it turns out that if the trailer is played backwards, there are familiar voices behind those noises – and perhaps some clues as to what’s coming next?
As you can hear in the second video below, you can now hear what sounds like David Tennant’s voice as the Doctor saying: “Cryptic! I hate that.”
It also sounds like Catherine Tate as Donna Noble saying: “Why did this face come back”, presumably in reference to the fact that Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth has regenerated into a Fourteenth Doctor that looks like David Tennant’s Tenth rather than the excepted Ncuti Gatwa.
Fans also spotted a tweet from the BBC account with binary code that was later deleted.
But what does all this mean?
Surely there’s more to come soon… a longer trailer, more clues?
Twitter user NotAgnor suggested that the UNIT soldier’s eyes were glowing due to neutron radiation referenced in a Beep the Meep comic. And that the binary code spelt out “the star beast”.
We have seen Beep the Meep in the full trailer for Doctor Who’s 60th specials, so this all seems to make sense. But what are we to take away from it?
Others have speculated that the short and confusing tease could be a reference to the Black Sun, also from the original comic strip.
With big TV events including the King’s Coronation and the Eurovision Song Contest coming up on the Beeb – it feels like there could be a chance of more trailers and teasers dropping soon on the network.
But what will we learn next, and how much will stay a mystery until November 2023 when the three 60th specials air?
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