Doctor Who season 12 episode 5 preview: “Fugitive of the Judoon”

Doctor Who season 12 continues with “Fugitive of the Judoon,” as a classic Who monster arrives in modern day Gloucester. Why? We’ll have to tune in to find out.

Get ready: A classic Doctor Who face is returning this week!

That face just happens to be attached to a….rhino head. Yes, everyone’s favorite intergalactic mercenary police, the Judoon are back this season. Yay?

This is their first significant appearance since we saw them as the guards of the Shadow Proclamation back in season 4’s “The Stolen Earth.” (Though their race has made various cameo appearances since then, most notably in season 5’s “The Pandorica Opens” and as part of the Doctor’s army on Demon’s Run in season 6’s “A Good Man Goes to War.”)

In short: We really haven’t had a proper adventure with them probably since the season 3 episode that introduced Martha, “Smith and Jones”. So, this is kind of exciting, even though we don’t know much about why they’re back or what they’re doing.

For once the official synopsis actually offers quite a bit of context for the upcoming episode, though it’s also not entirely clear we actually need more information than, oh, hey, the Judoon are coming back.

"Ko Sho Blo! Trigger-happy space police the Judoon are targeting 21st-century Gloucester. The Doctor, Yaz, Ryan and Graham race back to Earth in order to prevent them doing too much damage to the cathedral city. But who are they looking for, and what did they do to incur the wrath of the Judoon?"

Watch the preview below:

Interestingly enough, there’s not just a preview for “Fugitive of the Judoon” this week, but also a larger “coming soon”-style look forward into the rest of season 13.

One has to wonder who precisely the prisoner or criminal or whatever the Judoon are chasing might be. (The fact that both the episode description and the preview are keeping it so vague does kind of indicate we probably already know whoever this person might be.)

Could this be the way that Chibnall and company bring the new regenerated Master back into the story after the events of the “Spyfall” two-parter? Or will it turn out to be someone else entirely?

We’ll have to wait and see.

Doctor Who continues Sunday at 8pm ET on BBC America.