Returning: Doctor Who

Doctor Who: Flux is confirmed for Monday November 1, same day as the UK.

It will screen on iview at 6:20am and on ABC TV Plus at 7:30pm.

This is a 6 part series with Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill, John Bishop and Jacob Anderson and returning monsters Sontarans, Weeping Angels, Cybermen, and the Ood plus new monsters, one of whom is named Karvanista.

Each of the six episodes will be scripted by Chris Chibnall, except episode four, which he’s co-written with Maxine Alderton.

“Maxine wrote The Haunting of Villa Diodati for the 2020 series,” he says. “She’s brilliant. We had some other really great writers scheduled, but a lot of our plans had to be altered. Partly because the new series is a serial, partly because there are less episodes and partly because of the turnaround.”

The work has been divided between two directors, one of whom is familiar to regular viewers. “Jamie Magnus Stone delivered some amazing episodes in the last series,” says Chris. “For Spyfall: Part One we threw him in at the deep end with a South Africa location shoot, a crashing plane and a new Master. And he just sailed through. He came back even stronger with Ascension of the Cybermen and The Timeless Children. He’s great visually, great with action, great with humour and great with actors. Everybody loves working with him and he’s really in command of it. Asking him back was a no brainer.”

Doctor Who newcomer Azhur Saleem has directed episodes three, five and six. “[Executive producer] Matt Strevens and [series producer] Nikki Wilson are always on the lookout for up-and-coming directors with a love of genre, and there’s a wave of incredible directing talent coming through at the moment,” explains Chris. “In addition, [composer] Segun Akinola had written the score for a short film [Muse, 2020] that Azhur had directed and he said, ‘You should see this guy, he’s really talented.’ Azhur had been in line for the last series but we couldn’t make it happen, so this year we asked him to do three episodes.”

Updated.