We finally have an air date for the first episode of Series Eleven (07 Oct 2018), which will now go out on Sundays for (I believe) the first time. It’s been a long haul; we’ve known Capaldi was leaving since the end of January last year, and there’s been more than a nine-month gap between new episodes. Further, we’ll have known Jodie was destined to be the next Doctor for nearly fifteen months before we get to see her in action for real.

And yet, we’ve heard precious little about what will—or won’t—be on screen this year. I’m actually pretty impressed.

It has become the norm since the show returned in 2005 for a certain number of details to leak. In fact, whole episodes (e.g., S01E01 Rose, S08E01 Deep Breath) or scripts (much of Series Eight) have made their way to the Internet well before they were slated to air. The Night of the Doctor reportedly had to be released earlier than intended to head off a similar leak and the spoiling of the reveal within.

But episodes and other plot elements aren’t the only details to leak. Casting surprises like last year’s return of John Simm as the Master have also been a victim of loose lips. And because there’s a part of fandom that’s eager for any scrap of news they can get—and loves to share it as soon as they hear—spoilers run rampant in such a way that it’s hard to avoid them if one uses the Internet at all (which is to say, a huge number of fans).

Hope is a strange thing. It is simultaneously uplifting and crushing. Especially during this turbulent time in the world, I need something positive in my life, and yet even the possibility of my anticipation ending in disappointment looms like a specter over every potential bright spot. Perhaps that’s why I’m feeling particularly apprehensive about the upcoming Series 11.

While I am among those who have been on board for a female-presenting incarnation of the Doctor for years, the pending (no—current!) reality fills me with Hope—that wonderful, terrible mix of potential for brilliance and anathema. It is encouraging that her first words reflected a delight at her new face, but it is not enough to assuage my fears completely. That will only come with consistently good writing.

The problem now is that we have ages to wait until we see her in action for real. (Yes, I know the break between Christmas and the following autumn is pretty standard. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s the better part of a year until the next new episode.) That’s months for my brain to devise ideas about how it thinks she could/should be portrayed, building up all sorts of potential for disaster when things don’t go as I’ve projected.

I try not to project too much, but it’s a difficult task for someone who dabbles in fiction writing. One can’t help but devise one’s own scenarios for a character who has both a well-known history and a completely unknown personality. It’s that latter bit that alarms me most, though. As a woman who has loved science fiction and fantasy for effectively her whole life, I have come to recognize that women protagonists written by cisgender men don’t always act (and react) in a way that I, or the other women I see around me in my real life, would.