Popverse's top stories of the day

• Every new movie and TV series coming to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu in July 2024
• DC's Kingdom Come is getting the documentary movie treatment, with a big announcement coming in July 2024
• Marvel Studios unveils new Fantastic 4 artwork for San Diego Comic-Con

Doctor Who fans who have been paying attention might have noticed something… interesting about a background character in the second episode of the new season. Look at the woman working in the canteen around the 11 minute mark, the one surprised the Doctor and Ruby with how much the teas cost. Doesn’t she look a little… familiar…?

Maybe it’d help if I told you that the actor playing the character is Susan Twist, who’s shown up in two other Doctor Who episodes recently; she was a heckler when Ruby’s band is playing in ‘The Church on Ruby Road,’ and before that, she was in ‘Wild Blue Yonder,’ playing Mrs. Merridew. Curiously enough, she’s also been confirmed to be in the cast list of the third episode of the new season, ‘Boom’…

Doctor Who fans have some history with actors playing recurring, but different, roles throughout a season; think about the introduction of Jenna Coleman’s Clara back in 2012’s Season 7 — she showed up as Oswin, a stranded woman on a planet of Daleks, then five episodes later in ‘The Snowmen’ as Clara, a woman in Victorian England, and then an episode after that, in ‘The Bells of Saint John,’ as Clara Oswald, a woman in contemporary England (and the Doctor’s new companion). There was eventually a reason for this that involved Clara traveling throughout the Doctor’s personal timeline… so could something similar be happening with Susan Twist’s character…?

That will remain to be seen as the season continues, no doubt — but it’s worth noting that in the script for ‘The Church on Ruby Road,’ available online as part of a script library for the show curated by the BBC itself, Twist’s character is described as “a woman we’ll see a lot more of.”

The only question is… Why?

New episodes of Doctor Who will air weekly on Disney+, or, in the UK, the BBC.

If you want to start watching Doctor Who and don't know where to start, check out our handy Doctor Who watch guide. Or maybe you're already finished with the show - We've got the perfect Ten shows to watch when you're done watching Doctor Who guide for you too. If you're already heads over heels for the Fifteenth Doctor and want to learn more about the actor playing him, check out what he's been in before here. Or maybe you just need to figure out how the new series numbering is going to work (Are there really gonna be two series 1s? Yes.) - if so, this is the explainer you want.