On January 1, 2020 BBCAmerica announced after the end of the Dr. Who New Year’s special, Revolution of the Daleks, that comedian John Bishop will be joining the cast as a new Companion.

In the 60’s and 70’s, it was common for female Companions to leave the TARDIS to marry a man on another planet or in another era whom they had just met and didn’t know well enough to give their phone number to, let alone spend the rest of their life with. Some Companions get tired of running. When you’re with the Doctor, your life includes a lot of running. Others still are killed helping others. Some Companions want to live their own lives, instead of jumping from planet to planet and century to century, righting wrongs and stopping evildoers, Some Companions join Torchwood or UNIT.

But no Companion stays with the Doctor forever, and we just lost two of them with Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole to leave companion roles in 2020’s holiday special on New Year’s Day.

This leaves Jody Whittaker’s TARDIS door open for John Bishop, who will playing a man named Dan. From his clothing, he appears to be from the late 20th or early 21st century. Bishop was a footballer in real life before becoming a comedian and actor, so he looks more than capable of doing any heavy lifting the Doctor needs aboard the TARDIS. With his rugged good looks, he’s sure to be a favorite.

Details on who the character of Dan is are pretty sparse at the moment, but we do know that he is apparently moving out of his London flat with help from a friend – who turns out to be a cleaned up, better dressed version of himself. Dan’s horoscope says that for the coming year, the color blue will be important, and the letter “D”.

We have no idea what those clues could possibly mean.

Dan is in for some very sudden expansion of what he thought was the world, and between us, we cherish that moment when a new Companion is shown the inside of the TARDIS for the first time.

Who is John Bishop? He was a footballer (soccer player to our American fans), he’s an occasional TV presenter, and he’s regarded as one of the UK’s up-and-coming comedians. As an actor, he appeared in the films Route Irish and Funny Cow. On TV, he has appeared in Fearless and the controversial Skins.

Doctor Who works as a show because it’s constantly being renewed with new characters, new faces, and new stories. We can hardly wait to see what John Bishop brings to the TARDIS for us.

-30-