Doctor Who Season 8 Trailer Promises Darkness, Daleks, and Depth

For those of you watching the World Cup on a BBC network, you may already know that the Doctor Who season 8 trailer played during Sunday’s game. For those of you who, like me, don’t really watch a lot of sports, please watch the trailer below:

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Okay, have the chills stopped running through your spine? Good. Now let’s discuss what you just watched. Or didn’t watch, if you skipped the video (which is rude. I said ‘please.’).

What does every good Doctor Who season need? Daleks. We’ve got those, in spades, apparently. “Life returns. Life prevails,” they say. Sounds pretty ominous.

What else do we need? Explosions and space battles? Check. Also, apparently having dinosaurs in space last season didn’t meet the large reptile quota for a show about time travel, so we’ll get to see a T. Rex tearing through Parliament.

This brings us to the big one: depth. When you have a show that’s been on air for fifty years, revolving around the same title character, you’d think his character would get a bit stale before too long. One of my favorite things about this show, however, is the writer’s ability to keep the Doctor’s character fresh. Nine had just come out of the Time War and was all moody, Ten developed a god complex toward the end of his run, Eleven was aloof and carefree until he settled down to care for an entire planet for 300 years. One thing we’ve always been able to trust in was that the Doctor was good and heroic. But in what promises to be an interesting twist, Twelve will wrestle with his own morality.

“Clara, tell me. Am I a good man?”

“I…I don’t know.

Season 8 of Doctor Who premiers on August 23rd.