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"What on earth?" Doctor Who fans react to confusing teaser image after Mrs Flood's identity was finally revealed

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The Interstellar Song Contest had everyone's jaw on the floor

Mrs Flood in Doctor Who looking through binoculars
(Image credit: BBC)

Contains full spoilers for the Doctor Who episode "The Interstellar Song Contest".

There's a lot to unpack here, Whovians, as Doctor Who just aired a huge reveal that might change the course of this season entirely.

The most recent episode had everyone shocked, as we finally found out who Mrs Flood was after weeks of being tormented. In fact, showrunner Russell T. Davies has been teasing her identity since Christmas 2023, when actress Anita Dobson made her first appearance and broke the fourth wall and revealed that she knew what a TARDIS was.

Now, we know why, and it's worth the wait because Davies has just brought back an iconic villain in the form of The Rani, a renegade Time Lord from the Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey.

Viewers watched as Mrs Flood began to bi-generate, splitting into two figures; one played by Dobson, the other by Archie Panjabi.

"Our name is the Rani," Panjabi's version reveals, with Dobson seeming to be subservient to the newcomer. Panjabi added: "She’s become a Rani, while I’m the Rani – the definite article, so to speak."

If the return of The Rani wasn't shocking enough, a teaser image for the next episode has got everyone freaking out, with one post on X generating over 800 likes with plenty of confused viewers sounding off in the thread below.

It's The Rani with a baby. Yes, "what on earth?" is one way of putting it!

What are the leading fan theories about this teaser image?

Ruby Sunday standing on a street at night in Doctor Who season 2

(Image credit: BBC/Disney+)

Naturally, fans have sprung into action with many trying to figure out what this image could mean.

A few have suggested she could be the mother to the space babies, from the episode of the same name, but there's one theory in particular that really caught my eye.

As fans know, Ruby Sunday was abandoned as a baby, but there's still a lot of mystery around what exactly happened. In emotional scenes, she reunited with her birth mother, Louise Miller, but is there about to be a further twist in the tale?

Is The Rani holding baby Ruby in that promotional image? It's certainly a strong theory, with many pointing out that the cloak she's wearing looks a lot like the one in the flashback scenes where baby Ruby is left behind. If that is The Rani, then things just got very interesting indeed.

We'll have to wait until the next episode arrives on Disney+ and BBC iPlayer, on May 24.

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Lucy Buglass
Lucy Buglass
Senior Entertainment Writer

Lucy is a long-time movie and television lover who is an approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes. She has written several reviews in her time, starting with a small self-ran blog called Lucy Goes to Hollywood before moving onto bigger websites such as What's on TV and What to Watch, with TechRadar being her most recent venture. Her interests primarily lie within horror and thriller, loving nothing more than a chilling story that keeps her thinking moments after the credits have rolled. Many of these creepy tales can be found on the streaming services she covers regularly.

When she’s not scaring herself half to death with the various shows and movies she watches, she likes to unwind by playing video games on Easy Mode and has no shame in admitting she’s terrible at them. She also quotes The Simpsons religiously and has a Blinky the Fish tattoo, solidifying her position as a complete nerd. 

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