New 'Tales of the TARDIS' Installment Will Revisit Classic 'Doctor Who' Story "Pyramids of Mars"

One of the best things about Doctor Who, as a series, is its willingness to revisit, reimagine, and interrogate its own long-running history. For all that showrunner Russell T. Davies has insisted this latest incarnation of the sci-fi classic, with its new home on Disney+ and the bigger budget to match, is a fresh start and an easy entry point to new viewers, this run of episodes has been full of deep-cut references and plot points.

The question of whether the strange woman popping up in each episode was actually the Doctor's granddaughter Susan (who appeared on the show back in 1963) has been an ongoing mystery throughout this run of episodes. We've had references to everything from Totter's Lane and the Brigadier to the Toymaker and Harold Saxon. But nothing has been quite as....let's call it, classic as the reveal of the season's Big Bad: Sutekh, a deep-cut villain from the Fourth Doctor era and who is once again played by Gabriel Woolf, 48 years after he first assumed the role.

The BBC has at least realized that any new fans (or even relatively recent fans) probably need a cheat sheet for this, announcing that a new episode of Tales of the TARDIS will broadcast prior to the season finale "Empire of Death" to give viewers some much-needed context. For those who don't know, Tales of the TARDIS is a Doctor Who spin-off that revisits classic stories and features appearances from classic Doctors and companions like Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Sylvester McCoy, and Sophie Aldred.