‘Doctor Who’ Officially Returns This Summer — But There’s a Catch

While fans may still be left waiting for the resolution of last year’s agonizing Doctor Who cliffhanger, there’s a up-to-date adventure coming their way this summer that may sate their appetites. One of the Doctor’s most mysterious incarnations is set to return, and fans will be able to follow her across time, space, and multimedia. Doctor Who: Circuit Breaker is a wildly ambitious crossover that will send the Doctor into almost every form of media there is.

Jo Martin returns as the Fugitive Doctor in Circuit Breaker; recruited by UNIT’s Petronella Osgood (Ingrid Oliver) and her assistant Andrew (Omari Douglas) to investigate the mysteries of the Black Archive, she’s thrown into an adventure that pits her against some of the Doctor’s deadliest foes, including the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Sontarans, and the Weeping Angels. Unfortunately for her, while they’ve all sworn vengeance on her, she hasn’t met them yet. The multimedia storyline will hop across all manner of games, comics, audio stories, and prose, as it crosses over into Doctor Who licencees Titan Comics, Doctor Who Magazine, BBC Audiobooks, East Side Games, Puffin, Penguin Random House and Big Finish. It kicks off on June 25 on UNIT’s website, and continues with up-to-date updates all summer. The full list of chapters is below:

Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz
Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive?
The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars

Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.

????The Matrix

????Mad Max

????️Blade Runner

????️Dune

????Star Wars

TEST YOUR SURVIVAL →

01

You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do?
The first instinct is often the truest one.

APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it.
BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don’t keep you alive.
CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who’s pulling the strings.
DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it.
EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can’t fix a broken galaxy alone.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely?
What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.

AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don’t need resources — you can generate them.
BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it.
CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity.
DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on.
EShips and credits. The galaxy is substantial — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

What kind of threat keeps you up at night?
Fear is useful data — if you’re candid about what you’re actually afraid of.

AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant.
BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left.
CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you’re a problem, you’re already out of time.
DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn’t even know I was playing.
EThe Empire tightening its grip until there’s nowhere left to run.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

How do you deal with authority you don’t trust?
Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.

ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it.
BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better.
CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy.
DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can’t beat a system you refuse to understand.
EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

Which environment could you actually endure long-term?
Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.

AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — restricted, artificial, but with access to everything that matters.
BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is candid.
CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions.
DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand.
EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire’s attention rarely reaches.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart?
The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.

AA tight crew of believers who’ve seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose.
BOne or two people I’d trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks.
CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice.
DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last.
EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all?
Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.

AI won’t harm the innocent — even the ones who’d report me without hesitation.
BI do what I have to to protect the people I’ve chosen. Everything else is negotiable.
CThe line shifts depending on who’s asking and what’s at stake.
DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people’s future, even if it’d support now.
ESome lines, once crossed, can’t be uncrossed. I know which ones they are.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

What would actually make survival worth it?
Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.

AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it.
BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving.
CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out.
DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations.
EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else’s boot.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

Your Fate Has Been Calculated
You’d Survive In…

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

The Resistance, Zion

The Matrix

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t support but notice the seams in things.

• You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
• You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
• You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
• The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.

The Wasteland

Mad Max

The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are demanding to kill and harder to break. That’s you.

• You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
• You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
• You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
• In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.

Los Angeles, 2049

Blade Runner

You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

• You read people accurately, keep your circle diminutive, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
• In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
• You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
• In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.

Arrakis

Dune

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

• Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
• You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
• Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
• In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Star Wars

The galaxy far, far away is huge, raucous, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

• You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
• You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
• You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
• In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Who Is the Fugitive Doctor?

The event order of the Doctor Who multimedia storyline Circuit Breaker.Image via the BBC.

Members of the Doctor’s species “regenerate” into a different individual at the moment of death; thus, the various actors to have played the character over the years are considered to be his (or sometimes her) various incarnations. It was generally believed that the first incarnation of the Doctor seen on-screen when the show premiered in 1963, who was played by William Hartnell, was the character’s first incarnation. That, however, was thrown into question in the 2020 episode “Fugitive of the Judoon,” when the then-current Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) met a woman (Martin) who was apparently a past incarnation she had no memory of. It was later explained that the Doctor had previously led many lives that she was unaware of; Martin has since reappeared several times in the role.

The future of the TV side of Doctor Who is somewhat up in the air at the moment. After the show’s latest season premiered last year, the series lost its international streaming partner, Disney+, while also leaving the show on a massive cliffhanger. A Christmas special is planned to air later this year, which will presumably solve the mystery of why the Doctor’s latest incarnation (Ncuti Gatwa) seemingly regenerated into Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), the onetime companion of the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant Doctors.

Doctor Who: Circuit Breaker kicks off on June 25. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

Release Date

May 11, 2024

Network

BBC One

Directors

Alex Pillai, Peter Hoar, Ben Chessell, Julie Anne Robinson, Jamie Donoughue, Amanda Brotchie, Dylan Holmes Williams

Writers

Steven Moffat, Pete McTighe, Kate Herron, Inua Ellams, Juno Dawson

Franchise(s)

Doctor Who / Whoniverse