“Doctor Who” Season 11 is full of new things. New Doctor, companions, TARDIS, screwdriver, showrunner and, perhaps most surprisingly, new villains. While past seasons have repeatedly relied on recognizable monsters like daleks, cybermen and weeping angels, executive producers Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens said they are relying on entirely new villains to carry the new season.

“It’s part of making sure that, hopefully, the stories resonate with the world we’re in now,” Chibnall told International Business Times earlier this month at New York Comic Con. “One of the great things about working on the show, and for the writing team we’ve brought on as well, is we’re like, ‘OK, bring us your monsters! What do you want to do?’ So I think, as much as anything, we just wanted a real variety, that they ‘re surprising, that they’re fun, that some are creepy, some are scary, some are odd.”

With the regeneration and all the new elements, Season 11 is essentially a relaunch. That makes it the perfect time for new viewers to jump in. The showrunner added that he wants new audiences to feel ownership of the show. Adding the new monsters is helping in “showcasing what ‘Doctor Who’ can do and feeling that for the generation of viewers who are hopefully going to come on now, it feels like their monsters, ones they can own. You know the thing of, again, a kid of 8 or a first-time viewer of 28 or 98 that you go, ‘Oh OK, that was my monster.’”

Doctor Who
"Doctor Who" will feature all new villains this season. Pictured from left: Matt Strevens, Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall New York Comic Con - Day 4 on Oct. 7, 2018 in New York City. Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

Strevens added that he’s excited to see which monsters fans get attached to. “The biggest fun is seeing how they land with the audience. And you always think, ‘Oh that one will really kind of grab people and that one, this and that.’ I’m thrilled to see what happens and who takes what monsters to their heart and how they react,” the executive producer added. “So that’s great. And having 10 standalone episodes means we can be really greedy and have lots of monsters and villains, which is also a lot of fun.”

The new monsters certainly have been different. The “Doctor Who” Season 11 premiere introduced an alien called Tim Shaw, a Stenza warrior who wore the teeth of his victims on his face. Meanwhile, the second episode showed the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and her companions fighting both killer robots, known as sniperbots, and possessed rags, called remnants, that squeezed victims to death. Chibnall wants to keep the future monsters top secret, however.

“We’re being very cagey about spoilers because also the story of ‘Doctor Who’ and the story of the episodes is what’s the monster? What do they want? What’s their plan and if I tell you now, I’ll ruin episode 5 for you, and I don’t want to do that.”

However, he emphasized that they’re having a blast creating new creatures for Season 11. “It’s also the best part of the job. We get to make up monsters for a living with the amazing craftspeople people who bring them to life, whether that’s the visual effects or the prosthetics or the designers. That’s the great [part]. I didn’t get to do that on ‘Broadchurch,’” Chibnall laughed.

“Doctor Who” Season 11 airs Sundays at 8 p.m. EDT on BBC America.

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