We know that the Daleks are back for the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who – because Brendon and I saw them when we saw the trailer at San Diego Comic Con.

But it appears they may not be gone for long after that.

Bleeding Cool have been told that the Season Eight will bring us a two parter starring those infernal pepperpots, and will be The Next Doctor's first encounter with them. It won't even be from Steven Moffat– but from a new-to-Who writer. The word from the office is that you can tell, it came in ahead of time…

And yes, saying "The Next Doctor" does mean we don't have to specify which numbered Doctor, Peter Capaldi is playing. We've been operating under the Hurt Insert assumption that Capaldi would play the thirteenth incarnation of the Time Lord who goes by the name of The Doctor most of the time but recent comments make me wonder if they are counting the One Hearted Doctor played by David Tennant as well… in which case Capaldi would be the fourteenth. And so something must happen of a rather magnificent order in the Christmas Special for The Doctor to get another run of lives from The Time Lords… no wonder there are rumours of a new Master appearing for Christmas, alongside the new Doctor.

Of course, as always, we could be wrong about everything. It's been known…

Diddly dum, diddly dum, diddly dum…

UPDATE: Yes, we originally thought it was a Dalek season opener… It may just be the first scripts in…