Keeley Hawes is Our New Doctor Who Villain

Last month we were briefly introduced to a new secondary companion for Peter Capaldi‘s 12th Doctor, Danny Pink, a fellow teacher at Clara Oswald’s Coal Hill School. Now, the BBC has given us a look at the design for a new villain character, played by Death at a Funeral‘s Keeley Hawes.

Hawes’ character goes by the name of Ms. Delphox “a powerful out of this world character with a dark secret” and also, amusingly, “a banker.” The Doctor and Clara encounter her on “a strange and puzzling planet.” Hawes is also known for her roles in Line of Duty and Upstaris Downstairs, and the design of the character is somewhat reminiscent of a certain other memorable Doctor Who villain under Steven Moffat‘s tenure. That’s pretty much all we know about her at the moment. For now, she will only be appearing in one episode.

But if you’d like to venture back into the depths of the Tardis, to the Rumor Room (hey, there could be one, you don’t know), we’ve got the possibility that a classic Doctor actor knows of the return of another very significant villain to the show. According to the tweets of folks who attended Sylvester McCoy’s, the actor revealed that The Master will return, and he won’t be played by John Simm, but by a new actor. Obviously, we have only twitter’s word to go on, and it also doesn’t seem super plausible that a classic Doctor actor would have that kind of in with the news series. Or that he would be careless enough to talk about it at a panel.

So reports you have heard may have been exaggerated. Safe travels, Whovians.

(Hawes story via press release, rumor via Doctor Who TV.)